02/20/2013
Sherapop
1239 Reviews
Sherapop
6
Unsweetened Loukhoum
Unsweetened loukhoum may sound like a contradiction in terms, I am well aware, but it dawned on me this evening that that is precisely what Montale POWDER FLOWERS smells like to me. Not artificially sweetened loukhoum, with sucralose or nutrasweet or saccharine or cyclamates--no, that would be repulsive. Nor even lightly sweetened, "low sugar" loukhoum. No, to my nose, POWDER FLOWERS is the result which one would achieve if sugar were omitted altogether from the recipe.
Powdery, lightly flowery, with rose petals dusted with something pulverized and white but no sugar added whatsoever. I love this scent. It used to remind me of Charles Brosseau L'OMBRE ROSE, and I suppose that it still does vaguely during part of its life. The powdery aspect is very calming, and the composition is rich and airy at the same time. The alkaloid quality which makes loukhoum perfumes addictive to me is present here, but the super-sweetness is utterly absent. Tonka bean is listed among the notes of POWDER FLOWERS, but this is not sweet at all to my nose.
I generally drink beverages such as coffee and tea without sugar. I may add cream to coffee or a stout Assam tea, but I would not add sugar. I may add lemon to certain varieties of tea, and especially when it is iced, but I do not add sugar. In this case, too, I find the powdery flowers (and, yes, this perfume is well named!) to be even more appealing without than with the sugar added. I have to be in a very particular mood to be able to wear a sweet loukhoum perfume, but POWDER FLOWERS is an all-occasion scent and one of the more feminine offerings from the house of Montale. There is no oud within three thousand miles of this perfume!
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caveat emptor: I recently (in 2014) tried another sample of this perfume which smelled completely different from the above description. More like a sticky fruity-floral.
Powdery, lightly flowery, with rose petals dusted with something pulverized and white but no sugar added whatsoever. I love this scent. It used to remind me of Charles Brosseau L'OMBRE ROSE, and I suppose that it still does vaguely during part of its life. The powdery aspect is very calming, and the composition is rich and airy at the same time. The alkaloid quality which makes loukhoum perfumes addictive to me is present here, but the super-sweetness is utterly absent. Tonka bean is listed among the notes of POWDER FLOWERS, but this is not sweet at all to my nose.
I generally drink beverages such as coffee and tea without sugar. I may add cream to coffee or a stout Assam tea, but I would not add sugar. I may add lemon to certain varieties of tea, and especially when it is iced, but I do not add sugar. In this case, too, I find the powdery flowers (and, yes, this perfume is well named!) to be even more appealing without than with the sugar added. I have to be in a very particular mood to be able to wear a sweet loukhoum perfume, but POWDER FLOWERS is an all-occasion scent and one of the more feminine offerings from the house of Montale. There is no oud within three thousand miles of this perfume!
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caveat emptor: I recently (in 2014) tried another sample of this perfume which smelled completely different from the above description. More like a sticky fruity-floral.