TristanKalus

The crust of freshly candied apples breaks like splinters,
Caramel flows sugary, fruity over warm vanilla croissants.

The desserts served for snacking baked on sandalwood,
Creamy, dry, woody and paired with animalic oud.

Originating in Laos, deeply woody, dark with a pleasant note of stable,
But in no way stinky, radiant presence surge after surge.

But then the bag of sherbet tears and trickles down finely,
Tingling, sweet and fruity, it bubbles and foams up and down.

The warm, delicate shimmer of vanilla becomes a sweet mantle,
Underneath, you can clearly hear the beaver and civet paw stamping.

After a good while, the sherbet no longer roars,
Only dry wood and caramel float in the vanilla sea.

And so we sail along on our raft of oud,
Smoking fruity flavored tobacco, yes, life tastes good.

Fin.

The sky red with hot sand, a shimmering in the air,
Prints in the desert sand, I must not get lost.

The heat is dry, the sun scorches my head,
You keep your senses when you chew black pepper.

Apples upon apples our camel caravan has loaded,
The sun caramelizes the fruit, the camels leave behind flat cakes.

A hot wind caresses our cheeks, the oasis is not far away,
The palm trees already on the horizon, the muezzin cries down from the tower.

Warmly greeted by a veil of white flowers,
Oud in thick wafts, cheesy and hardly worth its weight in gold.

Covered in freesia and jasmine, we bathe in the hot pool,
Creamed and covered, relaxing under iris blankets.

Bedded in the finest sheets, clean, powdery-scented, soft,
Vanilla-musk fluff caresses tired nerves and instantly relaxes.

Amber-smudged logs of the finest sandalwood blaze in the fireplace,
Relaxation for tired bones, with the desire never to leave again.

Fin.

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Widian's Al Wasl or Gold I was once again one of the somewhat unexpected discoveries of the year for me - but on the unexpectedly good side. Al Wasl opens rather delicately and reservedly in the first few minutes. A fine pinch of pepper without significant spiciness, sweet caramelized apples and a hint of fine oud. Over time, the volume increases by a mill and a veil of white flowers covers the previous notes. I find it quite difficult to identify the exact flowers here, but I suspect freesia, jasmine and iris. The veil of flowers gives the impression of a rather innocent fragrance for a few minutes, but it cannot hide the really intense oud. Dark, animalistic and slightly cheesy, waves of this wonderful wood slosh through the veil and ensure that you don't forget it so quickly. Over time, Al Wasl becomes increasingly powdery and more and more vanilla comes through in an unsweet form, until you are finally left with a beautiful musky base with a real oud impact. Just as Al Wasl is special, it is also very special and I can imagine that the mixture of many flowers, dense musk and cheesy oud will not appeal to everyone. For me, it joins the ranks of unique fragrances that I like but are not candidates for purchase.

The sun shines through the forest canopy of leaves,
Balsam resin-soaked stumps on damp earth as far as you can see.

Dry and rotten wood can be found in equal parts,
Dark mushrooms grow from the second, on the first you sit to linger.

Out of the grove and into the sawmill for lunch,
It's quiet at the saws, food is served at home.

Fine sawdust shimmers, flickers in the warm summer air,
At the entrance there is a pile of stable wood that smells a bit.

Piled up dry woods of sandalwood, oud and cedar,
Exude their sweet scent of dust, the workshop smells of glue.

It's not just glue that the workbenches and saws smell of,
Also of viscous glue, turpentine and oil-soaked chains.

A salty breeze blows from the distant coast,
The sawmill is behind me, the intense smell of wood is just a pinch.

Fin.

___________________

What a great surprise! The previous reissues of the original Kemis haven't really been able to inspire me. But now Ilm is taking up the cudgels for this XerJoff collection. If you take a look at the fragrance pyramid, you'll get a relatively quick idea of what to expect here. The big question I asked myself beforehand, however, was whether the oud was any good and whether it was at least a bit like real oud distillates. And to answer both questions in advance: yes and yes!
XerJoff's Ilm opens slightly animalic and with a fine and subtle stable note. However, this quickly fades into the background, leaving behind a wonderful, woody fragrance that plays with nuances of both wet and dry wood. The oud is therefore quite woody and is accompanied by just the right amount of animalism throughout. Cedar and sandalwood mix in vigorously and create a warm melange of dust-dry woods with the balsamic resins and ambergris. Now and again, delicate notes of forest floor, mushrooms, glue and turpentine flash through, lending the fragrance even more depth and complexity. Unfortunately, there is no real scent progression here, but Ilm creates truly beautiful images in the mind's eye. It is only in terms of longevity and silage that this candidate fails to convince. Although the sillage is quite close to that of real oud oils, I would have preferred a little more in terms of longevity.

The year is 1969, it is a cool, wet fall,
Dark limousines on the way to the spaceport, joking in the car.

The rocket ready for launch, the astronauts waiting for their ride into space.
In clinically clean suits, they sit surrounded by lots of plastic and metal.

The floor is adorned with a carpet of short, gray pile,
Freshly laid, the velvety vapors are still rising.

Saffron-red lamps light up, the console beeps and flashes,
The rocket rises and leaves behind the earth, which waves goodbye to them.

In the cool space free of gravity and attraction,
Astronauts float from their leather chairs into the void.

People drink from plastic bags for refreshment,
Synthetic mandarin juice with a little osmanthus is the mixture.

So they orbit the moon and earth several times, complete the mission,
In artificially processed air, they admire the beauty of the planet with every rotation.

After the return flight and landing, the dust-dry runway beneath them,
The inside of their suits a little sweaty, but a grin graces their mines.

Fin.

____________________

It was a long back and forth with both of us! The first test a few years ago was more than negative. Sweaty, cool spice with indefinable synthetics and a bit of Maggi - awful! But sometimes it just takes time and countless other fragrances under the nose to be surprised by a scent that has long been written off. After all these years, Ganymede seems to me like a completely new fragrance that I never had under my nose. I understand what bothered me back then, but these disturbing factors are non-existent for me today. Instead, I have found one of the most beautiful and innovative creations of recent years in Marc-Antoine Barrois's showpiece. A cool, mineral beauty that does not use synthetics to disguise something, but makes them the center of its essence. Nothing seems real or natural in Ganymede. Plastic, synthetic flavors and fragrances, airless space with a hint of leathery saffron and dust-dry strawflower. Mandarin and osmanthus lend a hint of artificial fruitiness, but only enough to lighten up the otherwise sterile and dry artificiality. All in all, an insanely good release and, in my opinion, one of the milestones in the art of perfumery.

A dry gust let isolated grains of sand trickle over the shiny black scale segments of the slowly winding snake. The leathery segments slid almost smoothly over the dry, rugged ground, over brittle woods and between sporadically growing saffron and patchouli flowers.

Gucci's The Voice of the Snake comes across as a thoroughly dry oud fragrance. In the first moments of spraying opens a very intense medical form of the oud chord used here.

Must like - I like it!

Once the first veil of oud has settled, it becomes distinctly leathery. The leather note used here most likely results from the saffron and is more in the light and airy spectrum, rather than the heavy and dark leather. This gives the scent a certain lightness and filigree despite its intensity. The whole is accompanied by a subtle sweetness of saffron and a warm, nutty, almost cocoa-like touch of patchouli.

And that was it. Gucci's Voice of the Snake is not grandly complex, nor does the scent have any discernible progression. However, it is not what bothers me a bit here. I had to think long and hard until I figured it out - it's the coumarin. For my taste, a little too much has been used here, which results for me in the fact that I am reminded every now and then to Viktor & Rolf's Spicebomb Extreme.

In conclusion, it can be said that it is quite a nice release, but for me does not have enough unique selling points to move in with me.