Arcane

With the perfumes of London-based luxury brand The Merchant of Venice being at the higher end of the niche price spectrum, I never thought I'd be able to afford anything more than decants. Until, one joyful autumn day, I acquired a nearly unused 50 ml bottle of Precious Woods eau de parfum concentrée from their Museum Collection at a more than decent price. I've used it on special days only, wondering afterwards if those days were special just because I wore it.
So now here we are, many moons and a bloody lot of global hysteria later, and I am once again wearing Precious Woods. How joyful it is. How discreet. How refined. On my skin it starts off as a soothing gust of frankincense and saffron mixed with a summer night city kind of tar or tyre note. There's no citrus in the opening notes that I'm aware of. Slowly but steadily, the perfume develops into a scent of the smoothest well-worn leather. After a bit, in sails the smoke. Ah! But there's something else present in this most subtle of olfactive creations, something rather fascinating underlying the scent of that soft leather and lovely smoke. The magic word?
Cypriol. This exotic, reed-like grass is nothing like the fresh, crispily green grass of springtime. No. It is the sunray-beaten, already brownish grass of Indian summers when many of us, with that delicious tinge of melancholy, feel autumn approaching at a swift pace. Its herbaceous quality makes all the difference here. From the base notes, patchouli and sandalwood are, however moderately, reaching my nostrils. Vetiver, as listed in the pyramid, I do not detect at all – and I have a serious penchant for vetiver. After a few hours, those precious woodsy notes are almost leaping at me.
This eau de parfum concentrée version of Precious Woods – there's an eau de toilette version as well – ticks all the boxes for those of us who, on special days, evenings, nights or otherworldly occasions, delight in a particular scent to be savoured without anyone else present. Never mind the perpetuum mobile of the world's insanity. Imagine yourself reading an H.E. Bates novelette by candlelight, or listening to 'Point of No Return' by Sinatra at about an hour or two past midnight, sipping a rye-based Old Fashioned, and you're just about there.
As for 1- sillage, 2- longevity and such: 1- discreet, 2- average and tralala. A special mention must go to the elegant bottle with its clever locking device; whoever designed it, I salute you. Summa summarum: Precious Woods from The Merchant of Venice is a true treat for the solitary refined.

From the vintage miniature bottle I acquired flows an uplifting scent that speaks mostly of lavender with a distinct clove and coriander note. (Because of its age, the liquid has all but lost its citrusy top notes, so I refrain from commenting on those.) Le 3e Homme is a bright perfume, yet not flowery in the traditional sense, and its projection is rather good. Somehow this scent, for me, invokes melancholy. As the playwright and director David Mamet put it: things change.

Enclosed with an order from an online perfume store specialising in Middle-Eastern fragrances were two free samples, both of them from the UAE-based Al Wataniah house. Given the fact that I'd ordered oud(h)-heavy fragrances, the store's freebie picks were, in hindsight, odd to say the least. Before testing these I knew nothing about them, so I went into it with an open nose, so to speak.

The first one is Thahaani, an eau de parfum which is not yet listed on Parfumo. What I can tell you about it is this: if, as a guy, you like to feel like a walking and talking flower arrangement, then by all means do seek out Thahaani. This is quintessential girly-girls stuff. I felt like trespassing some pubescent countess' secret flower garden domain, with all those pastel colours screaming at me in their shrill girly-girls voices: 'Get out! Get out!' I did, feeling rather fortunate I'd sprayed the scent on a paper strip first. Whew, narrow escape there. Now don't get me wrong; I do love a lot of women's fragrances, but, you know, on a woman.
For whatever unreasoned reason I sprayed the second sample on my skin first. Now, on that scent I'd like to share a few words that will hopefully be of some use to readers. Because an interesting little experience it has been, testing Bareeq al Dhabab eau de parfum.
So, unwittingly, I put two discreet sprays of Bareeq on my wrist. Without delay, they produced the pungent, sour, bordering-on-the-nauseous air of a public urinal that hasn't seen a cleaner for a week. Ugh. Being the patient man that I am, I waited for the dry-down and a possible change for the better. But: no. I(t) kept on stinking. Trying to scrub the foul thing off my wrist, I grumbled to myself: 'Why didn't I spray this on a piece of paper first?' Well, I did so a bit later after all, puzzled by the effect. Had I stumbled on a bad bottle, a bad batch?
Much to my surprise, the two sprays of said liquid on a strip of paper turned out to be an entirely different story. No public toilet horrors. No pungent sourness. No stinking up the place. On that strip, Bareeq al Dhabab did actually smell like the (s)lightly smokey soft sweet scent that was no doubt intended by the anonymous perfumer. (Then again, one can never be entirely certain. Like that notorious dead singer once wrote: 'People are strange...')

As the three-note samba listed here on Parfumo is quite incomplete, here's the official one for Bareeq al Dhabab from the seller:

Top: Saffron, Pimento, Rose
Heart: Patchouli, Caramel, Oud(h), Flower Notes
Base: Musk, Frankincense, Amber, Resins, Woody Notes

On paper, the mostly ambery dry-down is unspectacular but pleasant, lingering for a good many hours. Oud(h) I do not detect in this. Both the pimento and saffron are hardly more than pinches, only noticeable as faint accents during the opening, while in the middle and end stages the musky part gets snowed under by the amber/caramel sweetness. Considering the latter, this perfume would normally prompt a recommendation to devoted afficionadi of fruit-free sweeties. In this particular case, however, the advice must be: please do try before you buy. Judging from my testing, skin and scent marriage for this one may differ strongly from individual to individual. If on your skin the simple, or straightforward, Bareeq al Dhabab smells as it does on my strip of paper, you have a solid budget-priced EdP sweetie to add to your wish list. Oh fragrance chemistry, you unfathomable cosmos of mystery.
As with a lot of Arabic perfumes, this one feels more or less unisex. Perhaps that's why, for an Oriental release, the bottle design looks remarkably restrained. It seems to be nicely weighty, too. Since Bareeq al Dhabab produces such starkly antipodean effects on paper and my skin, I have refrained from rating it, as that simply would be unfair. Can't have that. So make of this review what you will, bearing in mind that Al Wataniah has a number of fine and above-average performing perfumes in their catalogue. Like I wrote in the second paragraph: it's been an interesting little experience.

It's almost as if Christine Nagel is hell bent on breaking with Hermès traditions; this one feels rather cold, metallic, cerebral. Yes, H24 is original; daring even, given the Ellena legacy. But perhaps this is more of a perfumer's perfume, like there are writer's writers.
Obviously, the quality of ingredients and blending is there. Still, this is rather a far cry from the various Merveilles, and even more so from the subtle and poetic Jardins. Actually, one look at the unattractive bottle shape, and you just know this will be a departure from the soothing songs of scent that Hermès is known for. To be blunt: H24, to me, smells like an upmarket men's shower gel. Poor projection, sillage and longevity don't really help either. Oh well, perhaps it'll grow on me. Let's wait until spring and find out. For now, it is somewhat of an all-too-modern oddity that holds little attraction for me.

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* H24 revisited: spring 2022

Well, well. As it turns out, the Nagel composition of H24 is not entirely devoid of Ellena's touch after all. Far more noticeable now than in winter is the green component, for example. During the first hour, hour-and-a-half or so, there's not only the clary sage from the pyramid that's very prominent and refreshing, but also - to my nose anyway - the presence of the freshest tomato plant stems, even if they are not listed. A big plus. In this milder, in-between weather the fragrance on the whole seems to be less cold and aloof, too.
Sillage, alas, remains astonishingly poor for a Hermès perfume. Then again, even a generous few sprays of Un Jardin Après La Mousson tend to be hardly more than a skin scent on me, while vanishing into nowhere at lightning pace. Curiously enough, this is not the case with Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. Not a bit less strange is the fact that H24's longevity has significantly improved.
Even though its positive seasonal twists and turns do not warrant a full bottle purchase for me, I now find H24 to be actually wearable - in springtime. There's a fair chance it will perform even better in summer, with that odd aloofness probably turning into something pleasantly cooling.
I must say I'm glad to have revisited the fragrance. For once the old saying 'You never get a second chance for a first impression' does not hold true. Good for H24 (despite the bottle it comes in).

...those Rituals... would last a slight bit longer. Then the Amsterdam-based brand, with their slick presentation and accessible stores happily peddling a pseudo-spiritual wellness experience, would definitely be higher up in the hierarchy of Planet Fragrance by now. As it stands, the longevity, or rather brevity of their pleasant perfumes has prohibited that ascendance. But perhaps that is not their goal at all. Perhaps Rituals...' main focus is 'just' to produce ephemeric little olfactory treats that are affordable and leave a smile or two on the face of those who wear them. In a world filled with ugliness, that in itself is an accomplishment.

And so we come to the EdP that is evocatively named Bleu Byzantin, a creation from 2015 and still available. It smells almost exactly like the notes listed above, with the juniper, cypress, water mint and vetiver claiming the lead at various stages. While this one may be listed as 'fresh-aquatic', it has refreshingly little in common with most of the mainstream freshies. For its regrettably short presence in the air and on the skin, it emanates a certain sophisticated coolishness, perhaps it is even a tad arrogantly aloof. As for sillage: when in doubt, spray more.
For the casually yet smartly dressed, Bleu Byzantin could well do the trick in spring and during summertime. Since Rituals... offers handy travel-size 15 ml-flacons of their perfumes (priced at 14,50 euros), there's no need to worry about the longevity issue on any given day. They are more or less garden gnome versions of the 60 ml-bottles; same sparse and elegant design, same quality click-caps with excellent atomisers.
Although the brand's core clientele seems to be the thirty-ish happy-go-lucky crowd, I'd qualify Bleu Byzantin (and a number of other perfumes in the R...-catalogue) as equally well-suited to the forty-plus and even fifty-plus audience who like to steer clear of that ocean of juvenile generic blue scents.
Is it outdoorsy or indoorsy, you ask. Actually it's both, so there's another plus. Regardless of the season I like to spray this – or the Maharadjah d'Or from the same brand – on the back of my hand in the early morning before showering. Just one little spray, only to enjoy the opening and a bit of the dry-down. It's like welcoming the day, if you will.

So, coming back to that longevity thing: is it worth griping about? Yes and no. Yes, if Rituals... would put their minds and noses to it and improve on that (with the deeper scents especially), there can be little doubt that they'd have a few worldwide smashers on their hands. And no, not really; their scents, as short-lasting and moderately-projecting as they may be, are exactly those affordable little treats that anyone anywhere can enjoy. And think about it: a travel-size bottle of Bleu Byzantin will set you back the amount of a movie ticket. Now I ask you: which of the two lasts longer? Never underestimate relativity. So there it is, the long and short of it.