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Notes03/02/2019
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StellaDiverF
209 Reviews
StellaDiverF
Unimaginative amber/incense oud
Frederic Malle Dawn opens with a quite fierce oud. It has the similarly animalic, sour and fermented aspects like the Indian oud in The Night. However, instead of a full-on barnyard stroll, it also clearly exhibits a rubbery facet that fits the profile of Laotian oud that I've encountered so far. As a result, Dawn is indeed lighter than The Night, but overall speaking it's still fairly animalic as an oud perfume.
However, like The Night, the authentic oud characteristics in Dawn retreat to the background rather quickly, and what's left is only a softly sweet and resinous woody backbone with flickers of rose petals. Moreover, it's gradually consumed by a standard olibanum incense and labdanum amber accord, and further dried out by a discreet touch of woody amber aromachemicals, to the extent that the dry down after about 4 hours is almost solely a desiccating incense than anything smelling remotely of oud.
I got a medium to soft sillage with Dawn and a longevity of at least 8 hours on my skin.
For me, The Night and Dawn share the same syndrome: a fairly authentic oud opening undermined by ubiquitous, uninspiring rose and amber/incense accords. If Dawn was released two years ago, I would have recommended it along with The Night as an example of animalic oud to sample, because even though they're fairly standard and unimaginative, at least they showcase the animalic aspects of oud pretty well and are put out by a well-established brand. However, during these two years, many artisanal and independent brands have come up with oud perfumes either more authentic, more innovative, more sophisticated or more luxurious, and with a more interesting price at that. Therefore, I would not particularly recommend Dawn before other more interesting oud perfumes.
However, like The Night, the authentic oud characteristics in Dawn retreat to the background rather quickly, and what's left is only a softly sweet and resinous woody backbone with flickers of rose petals. Moreover, it's gradually consumed by a standard olibanum incense and labdanum amber accord, and further dried out by a discreet touch of woody amber aromachemicals, to the extent that the dry down after about 4 hours is almost solely a desiccating incense than anything smelling remotely of oud.
I got a medium to soft sillage with Dawn and a longevity of at least 8 hours on my skin.
For me, The Night and Dawn share the same syndrome: a fairly authentic oud opening undermined by ubiquitous, uninspiring rose and amber/incense accords. If Dawn was released two years ago, I would have recommended it along with The Night as an example of animalic oud to sample, because even though they're fairly standard and unimaginative, at least they showcase the animalic aspects of oud pretty well and are put out by a well-established brand. However, during these two years, many artisanal and independent brands have come up with oud perfumes either more authentic, more innovative, more sophisticated or more luxurious, and with a more interesting price at that. Therefore, I would not particularly recommend Dawn before other more interesting oud perfumes.
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