02/24/2015
ColinM
516 Reviews
ColinM
1
Ephemeral goodness
Midnight by Matriarch opens with a powerful, dark, dusty floral blend like a vintage Acampora, with gloomy, decadent, humid and quite heavy notes of tuberose, jasmine and narcissus and nearly nothing else, just a woody-musky shade on the base and a sort of slight sweet-anisic note, ambery and gently salty, which “rounds” the blend adding a (barely perceivable) touch of mellow and spicy sweetness. Really simple but rich, full and “narcotic” as it basically reunites the three “heavier” floral notes par excellence in my opinion. As far as I can tell, the floral notes smell beautiful and realistic here: you feel all the overwhelming camphorous earthiness of tuberose and the dirty-indolic feel of jasmine, well supported by narcissus and perhaps also something creamy (ylang?). Midnight is a “dirty white” scent, natural, gloomy and carnal, with (to me) no synthetic nuances, really pleasant and rich in class and refined nostalgia. Much unisex too: it smells dry, bold, austere, not that “graceful” as one may think. Now... the main (and basically only) flaw of Midnight is that I could barely put together my review before it started to vanish away. The longevity is quite an issue here: as long as it lasts, it’s fantastic, but after a bare hour it’s all brutally tamed down and reduced to a pale floral-woody-vanillic drydown. Surely pleasant albeit close to skin (and just “generically” pleasant), but at that price I would definitely want a better performance.
7-7,5/10
7-7,5/10
