Mohur

I was completely enchanted and struck by the first hour of "Mohur". Rich, opulent yet fresh rose with just the right amount of oud and leather added. Oh and the spices, a fantastic full oriental with natural and elegant roses. It simply SHINED on my wrist filling the room with this magnificent scent. In this hour I already checked where to buy this as I was head over heels in love with "Mohur". But as with some other perfumes made by Bertrand Duchaufour I encountered a problem. After the first hour - poof. "Mohur" settles to a powdery skin scent dominated by vanilla and almond, it is barely there, nothing left of it's opulence and greatness. It's like Mr. Bertrand Duchaufour used up his potency as a genius in the first hour and then decided to add some basic notes to give us a pleasant, powdery everyday fragrance. It might work for some what he did there, but it does not work for me. After such a grand opening I was rather annoyed to discover the meager dry down.

9:30 - initial spritz smells like cheap restaurant bathroom soap. Luckily turns into a complex rose very quickly. With a slight linger of bathroom. Now the almond is kicking in, which always has a touch of plastic for me. The spices are saving this. 10 - How is amber so far down on the note ranking??? This has turned into an amber bomb. Enough so that I'm verging on a headache, which normally only happens with white florals and vetiver. Must be an individual chemistry thing. Three spitzes, one on each wrist and one on my hair. Just foofed my hair out and the rose came back. I guess my skin is all about this amber. 12 - Gone by noon which was a bit surprising with how strong this was until 11 or so. Not for me, which is too bad because I'm into the notes. Oh well.

This is a lovely lush complex non-linear rose in the line of POAL or Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit and every so slightly Tauer's Une Rose Kandahar, and I think one of the Amouage perfumes (Lyric?). This is not to say that Mohur would just swap out, but when I think of rose families, NV Mohur belongs more in this one with its spicy qualities, depth and animalic facets. The opening blast just caught me totally by surprise, and I thought I had over-applied. That leads me to note: I did not over-apply. This rose is quite muted minutes later. One-half hour into the ride and it's a substantially lighter skin scent, still spicy and deep and lovely, but the silage is "Poof! Gone." Rose is front and center, but amplified; for a few amazing minutes, it's a deep RED rose on steroids, a velvet, furry fantastic rose with spices and woods. It's like listening to an opera singer shattering a few octaves in one long breath. But for the money, and considering the silage issue, one should try before they buy and carefully consider whether this is THE rose. I don't regret, but enjoy my other roses enough not to repurchase. PS--just looked up Lyric by Amouage. Well. No one is going to get a discount either way--but the notes are startlingly similar. Memoir I think is more powder incense.

After the big hype on perfume blogs I ordered 'Try your India' samples directly from Neela Vermeire Creations and was awaiting them with anticipation. They arrived and... I was somehow disappointed. It's either my skin chemistry that either makes all of these fragrances somehow insignificant or simply it's not my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, all three fragrances are beautifully done and shall any of them come my way as a gift I'll be pleased but they didn't move my heart. Out of three of them I like Mohur the most: it starts out strong and after this initial spray I almost ruled it out completely but then after a while (and in my case it was a long while!) it settled into pleasant combination of rose, oud, leather and very subtle vanila/almond. And don't ask me where I got it from but I can also smell cooked carrots! (yeah, carrot seeds are on the 'menu' - just checked) Update (half a year later in Summer). I digged out my samples I bought in January and tried Mohur again. What a surprise! I discovered nuances I didn't smell in winter, like its creaminess, softness, luxury. Amazing how our perception of fragrances changes with seasons. I put it on the top of my 'To buy list'. And who cares about the price? :-)

Another sample from the editors - thank you! Okay, in the book Jitterbug Perfume, amateur perfumer Priscilla was obsessed with finding the base note for her perfume and I'm pretty sure I know it was oud (along with beet pollen). On the dry down of this scent I get nothing but oud, along with a little leather and it smells completely old and ancient and is probably the secret to eternal life. I like the rose I get on the first spray, but it doesn't linger long on me. This is a lasting fragrance. It stayed with me all day. That said, I don't think the oud notes in this are my cup of tea, but I appreciate the complexities of this one and the fact that it is part of Neela's culture. I also like her logo very much.