Fragrance Review
By Suzanne Keller
She comes like fullest moon on happy night,
Taper of waist with shape of magic might.
She hath an eye whose glances quell mankind,
And ruby on her cheeks reflects his light.
Enveils her hips the blackness of her hair--
Beware of curls that bite with viper bite!
Her sides are silken-soft, that while the heart
Mere rock behind that surface 'scapes our sight.
From the fringed curtains of her eyne she shoots
Shafts that at furthest range on mark alight.
--The Arabian Nights,
Tales from A Thousand And One Nights
My bottle of Amouage Ubar arrived this morning and I have been in full swoon ever since. This newly relaunched fragrance, named for a long-lost ancient trading city of the Middle East, smells true to its heritage—and the way it juxtaposes the delicacy of lily-of-the-valley against the perfume’s deep and full-bodied fabric is masterful in creating the feeling of twilight settling over the open walls of a warm city. I read somewhere that lily is the Persian personification of night: the words lil or lilleh are designations for evening. Lilies-of-the-valley are of the lily family*, and though here in the United States we think of them as cheerful harbingers of spring and, thusly, more daylight, I have to say that the cool-and-ethereal quality of the lily-of-the-valley note in Ubar does very much remind me of evening, the way it twinkles throughout the fragrance like a night star. Eventually honeyed-rose and warm jasmine envelope it to a degree, along with a deliciously Old-World, vintagey-smelling base, thick with vanilla, civet and moss (and though it’s not listed, vetiver, I believe). But somehow lilting lily-of-the-valley glides over, or pops in and out of this deep dusky expanse without ever fully succumbing to it (helped along by a chiffon-like lemon note in the scent’s initial stages). It’s as if the thrust of the perfume is to act as a sumptuous cushion for lily-of-valley to recline upon, so that she can beguile with her tender beauty for a long stretch of time. (Much like Scheherazade settling in for a long night of story-telling in order to survive, and eventually win the love of, her crazed and embittered husband, the Sultan Schahriar, who would otherwise have her head.)
The Amouage website lists the notes for Ubar as…Top: Lemon, Bergamot, Lily-of-the-valley. Heart: Damascene Rose, Jasmine. Base: Civet, Vanilla
...but on the ingredients list, printed on the cellophane portion of the packaging, the company also lists “Evernia Prunastri (oakmoss)” and “Evernia Furfuracea (tree moss),” which I thought worth mentioning here for a couple reasons: firstly, because they contribute to the beauty of the fragrance’s rich base; and, secondly, for those of you who love scents that employ oakmoss and are bemoaning the fact that it has been removed from many of your favorites, you might enjoy knowing that the Amouage company hasn’t caved to industry pressures to abandon use of this precious ingredient, but has done the sensible thing (for those who are allergic or sensitive to it) by simply listing it on the ingredients list of their package.
As one would expect of a fragrance of this caliber, Amouage Ubar is long-wearing with a sillage that is very striking and yet, true to its good breeding, respectful. On the Amouage website, they have a review by Luca Turin that led me to believe that Ubar's sillage would be on the huge and flamboyant side, but I don’t find this to be the case at all. It smells expensive, yes, but to me it has that twinkling, twilight quality that I mention above—a sense of twilight’s quiet magic and mystery. This is a scent for formal attire—the perfect accompaniment to an evening dress—but since there are few occasions for that, and since I’m already so in love with Ubar, I’ll be wearing it with less finery than it deserves. I should also mention that while Ubar is described as a woman’s scent—and it does play more to the feminine side in terms of its notes—I’d love to smell it on a man. If my husband decided to wear this one, I would happily play the Sultana for him.
*There is some dispute as to whether lily-of-the-valley is of the lily family, but my research indicates that it either is (or was) considered part of that family. To quote from the Science Encylcopedia website: "There are about 240 genera and 4,000 species in the Liliaceae. Lilies are a diverse group and recent taxonomists have tended to split the group into four main families: Liliaceae, the lilies proper; Convallariaceae, lily-of-the-valley and Solomon's seals; Melanthaceae, or bunch-flowers; and Smilaceae, the catbriers or greenbriers. In this article, the Liliaceae is considered in the broadest sense, including all of these four groups."
Amouage Ubar is available from Aedes.com, ParfumsRaffy.com, and LuckyScent.com, where I purchased my bottle: $250 for 50 ml or $285 for 100 ml.
Available at Aedes de Venustas during Sniffapalooza Fall Ball
Samples available
Images: Scheherazade and the Sultan by Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen (1886-1957) from Artpassions.net; bottle image of Amouage Ubar is from Harrods.com.
Amouage Ubar and Amouage Dia
Fragrance Reviews by Suzanne Keller
RAINY DAYS AND AMOUAGE DIA POUR FEMME
Fragrance Review
By Suzanne Keller
The first week of June has proved to be much like May, which is to say, endlessly rainy. I’ve come to the conclusion that after so many days of rain, there’s no use spritzing sunny perfumes to try and lift the spirits and make-believe that a trip to Tahiti is just around the corner, or even that there’ll be a non-soggy spot to lie one’s beach towel down at the swimming pool this weekend. It’s so cool and rainy here that I tend to forget that Memorial Day has passed and that the swimming pool is actually open. The days all run together in a fog, until it seems like time has stopped…only where? In April, apparently.
At this point, spritzing on a fragrance as delightfully tropical as, say, Montale Intense Tiare, or as stunningly solar as Carnal Flower, feels incongruous: it just makes my mood worse.
Sometimes the best solution to life’s problems is to lie down with whatever’s bothering you, try to find some aspect of it that you can respect, and then embrace it for a while. So that’s what I’ve been doing this week. In between raindrops, I go for short walks along a wooded path where masses of Dame’s rocket are currently in bloom, and I try to forget that my socks are soaking wet and notice, instead, how the rockets’ fragrance has a magical, fairytale-like density in damp air, and how their purple petals glow amid the wet greenery and dark pockets of forest on these low-lit days.
Along the same lines, I decided that my fragrance this week should complement the weather, so I’ve been using up my sample of Amouage Dia pour femme. It smells like a bouquet of expensive flowers grown in France and purchased on a rainy street corner in London. Dia’s complex bouquet possesses all of the elements of classic French perfumery, yet it’s treatment strikes me as being more fluid and dewy. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that the Amouage company intended Dia to be the daywear equivalent to their ultra-luxurious fragrance, Gold, which is largely regarded as a nighttime-formal scent (with the emphasis on “formal’), and that the company hired perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena to formulate Dia.
What is a surprise—and further testament, I believe, to Jean-Claude Ellena’s genius—is that Dia manages to smell so very much like Gold while at the same time being an adaptation that is friendlier to wear by day and which does, in fact, have Ellena’s signature (not immediately recognizable but evident as the scent dries down). Dia echoes Gold’s sophistication and sense of luxury—and like Gold, it smells old-world perfumey, such that it is likely to draw the “old-lady perfume” criticism that so many of us perfumistas have now grown immune to. Dia, however, is less heavy than Gold, with a soapier smell in the beginning stages of the scent, and after a half hour of wearing it, I detect what I can only describe as an Ellena-like water note begin to develop. How does one smell water? I’m not sure if it’s something that I actually smell, or if the bouquet takes on a cool quality that merely reminds me of water. Unlike the way the florals in Amouage Gold dry down to a woody-incensey base, the florals in Dia become more floaty and aqueous.
Dia’s fragrance notes include:
Top: bergamot, cyclamen, fig, sage, tarragon, violet leaves
Middle: orange blossom, orris, peach blossom, rose, peony
Base: cedarwood, frankincense, gaiac wood, heliotrope, sandalwood, vanilla, white musk
The photo at the top of my post, of a cyclamen covered in raindrops, seems so fitting for a review of Dia, as cyclamen is a fragrant flower that is described in Nigel Groom’s The New Perfume Handbook as having a scent that “recalls a blending of lily, lilac, violet and hyacinth.” (I thought I detected a bit of bright hyacinth and violet in Dia’s topnotes.) Twist these spring flowers into a bouquet with their hothouse sisters—rose and orange blossom in particular—add some iris root and set the bouquet to float in the pool of a fountain. That’s how Dia smells to me.
Considering that it mirrors Gold so closely, one might wonder what appeal Dia would have for someone who owns the former. It’s a little hard for me to answer that, since I favor Gold’s over-the-top opulence… but if one had a ton of money, why not own this daywear complement to Gold?
Some people consider the Amouages too pricey, but I disagree: I think they’re worth every penny. If there weren’t so many rainy days **sigh** I had to save my pennies for, I’d love to own Dia, too.
Available at Aedes de Venustas during Sniffapalooza Fall Ball
Samples available
Amouage Dia is also available from LuckyScent.com, $270 for 50 ml.
Samples of Dia can be purchased from LuckyScent, as well.
Image, titled "dew drops" is from the photostream of zedzap (Nicholas Kenrick) at Flickr.com.
Suzanne Keller is the owner of Eiderdown Press and has her own fragrance blog called Suzanne’s Perfume Journal. Eiderdown Press is publisher of books along with the publication of Free Spirits, a coffee-table book celebrating the community of artists and other creative types in Suzanne Keller's community. Her Top 10 Favorite Fragrances: Amouage Jubilation 25, Robert Piquet Fracas, Hermes 24 Faubourg, Caron Tabac Blonde, Chanel Coromandel, Chanel No. 22, Parfums DelRae Amoureuse, Frederic Malle Carnal Flower, Parfums de Nicolai Sacrebleu, and Serge Lutens Chergui.
Eiderdown Press and Suzanne’s Perfume Journal
Available at Aedes de Venustas during Sniffapalooza Fall Ball
