It's been a few years since I entered a perfumery on Königstaße in Stuttgart and asked the shop assistant for a patchouli fragrance. Since I bought Jovoy`s Psychodelique around 2012 at Akzente, my old love for Patchouli had been rekindled. I wasn't much for perfume at the time. The old classics from the 80s weren't the same anymore and the new mainstream scents all smelled pretty similar or the same to me. I hardly knew niche perfume at the time. In addition, I was always fixated on fragrances based on patchouli, amber or sandalwood. Sayings like "You smell today again, as if you just got out of an old Indian temple" or "You already burned a few incense sticks today", I used to often hear. Today you can hardly find a patch scent in the surrounding area. There you have to go to Stuttgart or to Wuchsa (he is practically just around the corner, but I didn't know him back then). B.t.w.: I miss these little, special shops in our cities. The small shops with all kinds of special products from faraway countries, where you always found what you were looking for when you needed a little present. Where it smelled so wonderfully like oriental scents. Where you could buy fancy clothes, silver jewellery, great comics, kitsch, art, incense and Indian perfume oil. Today, one city is like another, at least as far as shopping is concerned. In the inner cities, the big chains dominate.
But back to Stuggi-Town in said perfumery. The lady there sprayed a few test strips from different flacons and handed them to me, one after the other. 3 or 4 pieces, there were no more, but there was a fragrance that was particularly striking and made the others seem uninteresting. Sprayed onto the skin, I found it to be one of the best, probably the best patchouli fragrance I've ever smelt and I already know a few. Rarely before had I noticed Patchouli so intensively with this very special, organic, animal note in the opening, which was to last relatively long. Of course, "beautiful" wouldn't necessarily be the right adjective. Beautiful fragrances are plentiful and beautiful can be quite everyday. Interesting, unusual, mysterious and valuable are more characteristic. I can well imagine that quite a few would dismiss him as a "stinker". Overripe came to my mind, pulsating, alive, animal. Stable smell. A clean stable, horses. Warmth, damp earth, old wood. Matured in barrique barrels. Dark cellar vaults. A pulsating mass on my wrist. Some of it crawled through my nose into my brain and must have settled there forever. I can't remember how it went from there. I remember it lasted a long time.
I didn't buy the scent back then. The prize stopped me. It was about 180,- € and seemed very high for a small bottle of perfume. At least I wanted to test it first, see how it develops over the next few hours. Test its fragrance and durability. As I said before, I didn't make much out of perfume at that time and so the fragrance was soon forgotten again. For now.
Unfortunately, I didn't remember the name of the brand. The perfume was simply called Patchouli and also the bottle was of simple, unobtrusive design.
Now, at the beginning of the year, an acquaintance of mine who wore patchouli almost fixed me again. This scent, which I liked so much in former times, I wanted to have now absolutely again. Of course the described perfume experience came to mind again and I started looking for this one fragrance. Ordered samples for samples in the net, bought one or the other bottle, had bottlings come to me, etc... In the meantime I have tested 50 different Patchouli and I have to say that the yield of Patchouli fragrances that I like is relatively low and around 15% for niche perfumes.
Was he there, this very special patch scent? Did I find him again? Honestly, I don't know. But it doesn't matter at all, because through my test marathon I definitely got to know some beautiful perfumes and it was fun too. And when I consider that I have been using patchouli daily for months and already had some very good scents on my skin, it's not surprising that my nose has got used to this raw material in the meantime. Actually, it could only have been the Roma, just from the price (And if anyone can think of a fragrance to describe me further up in the text, let me know). Anyway, I found a few favorite patches and Profumum Roma Patchouly is one of them. If not the best! Definitely! And just like my other favourite fragrances, the Roma consists of only a few ingredients of the finest quality. Patchouli, sandalwood, amber and frankincense are among the most beautiful fragrances for me anyway. That's all it takes to create a masterpiece. Despite the few ingredients, Patchovly is a complex fragrance. A fragrance that you have to work for until it opens up to you in all its facets. An olfactory work of art.
It remains to be seen whether Roma Patchouly will remain with us as we know him. I don't have much hope. Many Patchouli fragrances have already been "castrated" and have lost a lot of character. The only thing that reminds you of Patchouli is the writing on the bottle. The Roma stands and falls with its high concentration of fragrances.
Splashfrag12
BertolucciK
Q8baggio
Ngarcia
BoBoChamp
