Discovery Kit by Roberto Dario

Roberto Dario is an Italian all natural perfumer who switched his career in chemistry for his passion in perfumery.  So far he has seven scents in his collection. His line is not a marketing based concept where each perfume represents a certain fragrance family to fit the widest possible customer’s preferences. Like for example four of his seven scents are featuring lavender in their name. Who would do something like this nowadays? I guess only a passion driven  perfumer with love for the beauty of the ingredients.

Recently he offered a Discovery Kit, a sample set containing 2 ml of each of his seven perfume in dab vials. A perfect  opportunity to try them all, listen to their stories and see how far they can seduce you. More about Roberto and his scents is on his website: http://esperienzeolfattive.blogspot.nl/

My absolute favorite from his collection is DolceDesiderio. Inspired by a story of seduction from the 17th century where a French Madame “enjoys” her younger lover. The tale is interpreted with the notes of rosewood, Bulgarian rose, Turkish rose, geranium, labdanum, patchouli, benzoin and vanilla.
Dolcedesiderio doesn’t pretend to be a very complex scent, but it has a very surprising classical, almost vintage feeling reminding me of Jicky and some aspects of Shalimar, Bal à Versaille and Habanita from the past.  It rises an illusion of something I smelled before – somewhere in my childhood, but can’t remember anymore.  It smells familiar, but doesn’t let me to remember the name… The simple beauty of natural raw materials suggests indeed that it could be a perfume from the 17th century. And I don’t have any doubts that it could be used by Madame to seduce her lovers.

The start of Dolcedesiderio is a bit too loud as if the components are arguing with each other for the right to lead. The winner is red rose with sharp geranium based thorns reminding me of Madam’s bright red lipstick she uses for seduction. But once the perfume settles on my skin, it becomes very pleasing. In fact it blends very well with my skin turning into a warm fragrance of a sensual, slightly powdery rose sweetened by vanilla and balsams inside a classic warm amber accord. It becomes a very warm, soft and romantic scent. Very attractive and seductive in that sweet old-fashioned way. I really love how it opens on my skin as well as my skin loves vanilla and balsams in perfumes.

Musc Ravageur

Image from - Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle

Musk is a very famous and broadly used ingredient in perfumery. Natural musk combines warm, sweet, animalic and ammoniacal aspects and does not only enriches the perfume composition, but also gives it more affinity with human skin and fixates the fragrance. It’s not used in perfumery anymore substituted by synthetic analogues. Unfortunately they don’t poses all the nuances of natural musk. Stripped off warm animalic and ammoniacal notes synthetic musk is too clean and its sweetness seems to be the only aspect left.

But Maurice Roucel succeeded to unleash the beast and to recreate the fragrance that shows the true character of the real natural musk without using any of it. Chandler Burr reveals the secret in his review. A transparent sweetness of synthetic musk base was fed with warm and animalic notes of synthetic castoreum and dirtied with some filthy animalic and ammoniacal aspects of synthetic civet. Et voila – a natural musk effect and no animal is hurt. But when you create a beast you should think about taming it. But what can balance the dark nasty devastating monster? Of course it should be something white, soft, sweet and kind like Mother Goose… or Vanilla (translated into perfumerian language). Musk and vanilla strengthened with spices like cinnamon and topped with the citrus notes of bergamot and tangerine – that’s the core of Musc Ravageur.

Luca Turin in his guide doesn’t show much enthusiasm about the wild musk creation of Maurice Roucel. He gives it 3 stars and calls it a “hippie musk”. Luca compares the fragrance with Ambre Sultan by Serge Lutens. And the dry down of Musc Ravageur reminds Luca the dry down of Envy for man (Gucci). It’s funny to notice that original version of Envy (the one pour femme) is also created by Maurice Roucel in 1997. Well, to me Musc Ravageur indeed shares similar aspects with Ambre Sultan, but is more animalic.

Another interesting comparison is between Musc Ravageur and Shalimar by Guerlain. Well – both fragrances use noticeable doses of vanilla in combination with animal notes, amber and spices. They share similarities, but they are different. But if you like one of them you may like to try another as well. Unlike Shalimar Musc Ravageur doesn’t have any flowers in it – no floral heart at all (as said in the description of this scent). But is it entirely true? Maurice Roucel seems to use Magnolia as a signature scent for the most creations. I don’t recognize magnolia in Musc Ravageur, but I smell an interesting transparent note there. It seems to be an extension of the citrus note – fresh, slightly fruity and floral. It might be hedione and it is the only floral aspect I can find here – like frozen white flower petals.

There are also similarities between Musc Ravageur and Oud 27 (Le Labo). And if you like to try a clean version of transparent sweet musks washed and stripped of all filth and decorated with flowers you might like another creation of Maurice Roucel – Rochas for Man in a very suggestive bottle.

On my skin this fragrance begins with a funny cacophony of all notes playing at once dominated by animalic and ammoniac civet – it’s like the sounds of orchestra warming up just before the theatre performance. But as soon as alcohol evaporates the fragrance finds the balance on my skin. Warm, deep and sweet base of musk and vanilla is present from the beginning through the whole fragrance transforming into the amber. Citruses here are rather cold and frosty (but not crispy) than warm and sunny. The contrast between cold and fresh, but sweet and fruity citrus and warm sweet and deep base of amber, vanilla and musk is the main theme of this perfume. Sometimes I smell a note of almond that reminds me of Louve (Serge Lutens) and later I smell that soft transparent floral note coming from citrus. Spices are present, but they are rather supporters than the main actors. Silage of Musc Ravageur is moderate. I used two sprays on my body and one on my wrists and I couldn’t smell this fragrance all the time (unlike Ambre Sultan, for example). After 4-6 hours it was almost gone and I could only smell it only after putting my nose very close to the skin and warming it with my breath.

To me it’s a wonderful fragrance for the cold time of the year. The flowers are gone (and you can’t find them in the fragrance either), the air is cold and frosty like the citrus part of Musc Ravageur. But you are wearing warm jack, a scarf and gloves made of the warm ambery base. I guess I’ll put this scent together with my other Amber scents as the most animalic amber and use it when I need to use less sweet and a bit nasty amber that doesn’t give too much silage, but still warms my body and soul.

L’air du désert marocain. Andy Tauer.

Nederlands: http://aromax-nicheparfum.blogspot.com/

Today I’ve got a package from Switzerland with perfume testers of Andy Tauer. The hand written letter was a nice finishing touch making it personal.

L’air du désert marocain opens with a kind of canon shoot of wood, incense and spices with some citrus in it. It feels heavy first, but stills down very soon. And then you discover…

A smell of wood at the end of a sunny day, what you can smell in a wooden house somewhere far away from see, where it’s always dry and hot. It can be a place where spices are stored or sold. But it can also be a temple where the incense is burning. You will never know and that is the mystery within this perfume. You can ask, but the only sound you can hear as an answer is a weeping of a hot wind…

It’s a nice reproduction of with a sun warmed wood and dry spices. The fragrance is surely oriental and gives an exotic touch to a man or a woman who wears it. This fragrance makes me thinking of Ambre Sultan and a little bit of Cédre of Serge Lutens, but it’s drier and less sweet than Cédre and it's closer to s sking than Ambre Sultan.