Leathermount

I think if I’d been expecting this, I might have loved it. But in DSH's stated context of aromatherapy, or relief from sensory overload, this is just a little too much. It’s very fizzy and sweet. So powerful that it’s hard to believe it’s 100% botanical. I am not familiar with any botanical materials that behave like this does! It also has a citrus/juicy aspect, which is the most interesting part. Certainly worth a try for die-hard rose lovers. I actually belong to that category, but I was underprepared for this roseplosion

I'm trying the perfume for the first time. The top feels a little generic-aquatic. I tend to get that with cardamom aromachems, a connection exploited I think in the concept behind Epice Marine.

The heart is more up my alley, a light smoke. But it's more piney/citrussy frankincense than mysterious lapsang souchong, and I feel like the music is calling for something with more growl. Maybe I didn't apply enough? I do appreciate the fact that it gets smokier over time. A lot of smoky scents open with some kind of explosion and then go hide in mama's vanilla sugar. There's certainly a different story to this one.

Unfortunately for me the story ends on an industrial cleaner note.

Here's a fragrance with something to say. Perhaps you've heard it before, but good storytelling is not just about novelty. Amoureuse is aptly named, a vivid juxtaposition of things innocent, sweet, and carnal. It wears like a rite of passage: opening all powdered Baiser Vole, and evolving gradually and inevitably into carnal jasmine and narcissus, a drydown reminiscent of good vintage natural floral bases. I don't imagine wearing it much, personally, but it is a lovely olfactive sketch of the memory of a youthful affair.

It's not too sweet, giving it the balance that Goutal's Myrrhe Ardente lacks. I think it's lovely, and this is coming from a person who doesn't like a lot of vanilla scents. In overall mood and in this balance, Opium Fleur de Shanghai reminds me strongly of Tommi Sooni's Eau I, although the balancing is done in a different way.

No relation to the listed notes. Opens fruity-citrus, and sharp. Sure, there are clean musks in there, but it's much more sour and botanical than plain musks. Then the sweetened patchouli, with a nice dank earthy side to it, like patchouli should have. And then underneath all this, a growling narcissus-type creature emerges, which I can smell only when I exhale directly on my skin and then inhale immediately; it's the warmed, moistened version. Finally, strangely, back to the grapefruit cocktail from the start. Not an aldehyde in sight, at least not in the abstract-fuzzy olfactory-category sense of the word. Secrets has some nice things going on, but they're all out of proportion and uncoordinated. Oh well.