Flamenco

I had high hopes for my Ramon Monegal discovery set after sampling Impossible Iris and liking it. Unfortunately my trial run with Flamenco is not going well. I’m close to 3 hours in and I don’t like any aspect of this scent: medicinal sweet opening through the synthetic drydown. There is a familiar DNA, similar to what I pick up in Montale/Mancera fragrances Just too hard to continue as it’s borderline headache material. The overall scent profile makes me think of a mainstream department store perfume, full of sticky fruit and red flowers. Too much sweet, and too many notes bumping into each other. Every perfume has synthetics, but I want some of those to smell natural and this does not. I can understand the mass appeal, but a strong pass and dislike from me.

Ole! Sorry to rush straight into stereotype, but sometimes it's the word you need - to react to an impressive, impetuous, swashbuckling show of force ... whether it's football or flamenco, the real players make themselves known, fast and unmistakeably with outrageous plays like this. Looking for an astonishingly assertive, riotously red, thrillingly florid, relentlessly rosey rose scent? Voila ... here she is. Outstandingly strong and dramatic, pure, natural-yet-neon rose which is almost audibly of the grown-up-woman-of-the-world variety rather than any sort of more shrinking, bridal, delicate kind. Flamenco is not shy at all - the projection and sillage and intensity and longevity are all crank-it-up-to-11 LOUD, which is fine if the smellscape works for you - but don't blind buy this, as you're unlikely to come around to it if you're unsure. It's pretty linear, so what you smell at first is what you'll get - it doesn't shape-shift much as it wears (it doesn't even quieten down much, to be honest). And there is no mistaking that it's rose, deep passionate red pillowy ultra-femme rose, all the way down. That's not usually my kind of deal at all - the only other rose fragrances I've tried in this league of attack is Lutens Fille de Berlin, which is just too frigid-tough-girl for me, and Lancome Roses Berberanza, which is smoother but still too femme - but I do still like Flamenco a whole lot. It's a lot warmer and a good bit darker than FdB, for a start. The touches of other notes around the edge do great things for the central flower, and they also stretch the accord without dirtying it up as a dose of patchouli (as in Malle's Portrait of a Lady) might do. Feels organic and fleshy and absolutely bursting with life. Maybe too much so - on me it's bursting with so much life it's practically bursting out of its underwear. It's almost embarassingly extrovert, such a hot fandango that it's almost on the verge of too much. This is a scent that practically flashes its eyes, bats its lashes, snaps its castanets and bares its teeth at you in its seductive assault (complete with a large red rose clamped between them, of course). It's Technicolour-blaring and almost camp in how unapologetic it is about being a GREAT BIG LOUD RED ROSE scent and nothing else. For me just a tiny bit too bright and loud to be perfect (I think I'd like it just a notch more mellow and spicy and a hair less screechy), but worth a great big round of loud applause no matter what. Close to a definitive version of a classy, individual rose with no oud and no patchouli. Real hardcore rose fanatics will be in heaven, I think. I'm going to politely make my excuses and find a slightly quieter companion... but Flamenco will have leagues of admirers drooling at every lush curve and turn it presents, I'm sure.

Nothing but ambroxan with a little sweetness to me. I'm really sensitive to this note and it takes over every perfume it's in for me.

I have to disagree with others here. I really don’t like the blending of these notes in this fragrance. When you first take a sniff it’s soft and bland then out of nowhere you get a ninja kick to the brain of something fruity and slightly tart. Which I’m guessing is a mix of the Apple and Raspberry. I don’t know....I just personally don’t like it and probably would never recommend it either.

@mrsoutlaw seriously try a sample of DEVIANT by WESKER. It's in the same scent family but, more feminine and longlasting. It was love at first sniff for me. I had the same experience with FLAMENCO and sold my bottle.