Ormonde Jayne I

Several years ago I discovered these perfumes but in the chaos of new launches during the last 2 years, I almost forgot how they smell. Add to this that they are not available in Paris. This summer I sampled the fragrances but I think there was something wrong with the top notes. Now, I rediscovered the perfumes and their original touch and I was quite surprise to notice how their ideas were to be found later in other fragrances.

Ormonde Woman A dry jasmine over a sweet woody ambery base with vanilla, woods and amber suggest from far the sweetness of Ambre Antique. Again it is only an illusion because this perfume is rather dry and woody forest. The cardamom and hemlock contrasted with something like a liquor note reminds the classical chypre idea and the term "corsé". But we are not in a chypre nor an ambery context. The perfume is like an immense wood producing an imaginary agar - made out of vanilla, spices and aromatic herbs that give almost a salty note.

Ormonde man with cardamom, pepper and hemlock over a coniferic note suggests the dark forest near the sea with its salty breeze over the forbidden mosses.

Isfarkand is a pleasant mixture of pepper, cedar molecules and vetiver with a contemporary minimal drydown. It is an excellent woody perfume that shares several aspects with Terre d'Hermès, though it was launched before. With a certain bitterness and mossy quality it evokes the great forests of the past and the mineral universe.

Orris noir is a less conventional orris fragrance that I would describe as woody orris with cocoa and aromatic+camphor herbs. It's rather a delicate minty pastry with a soft spice bouquet served on a dry wood plate (guaiac and cedar).

Taif - a rosy perfume like an oriental dessert - loukoum with dates and rose water and powdered with sugar and vanilla. Unlike oriental attars, this perfume is again the breeze, the illusion, the souvenir. Nothing is heavy or intoxicating inside and the rose floats in a water where only one drop of syrup was added. It's like the souvenir of Alhambra gardens with its beautiful waters where pepper, rose buds and liquid honey stay side by side in the sun.

Tolu evokes the herbal but balsamic sweetness of dunes in the south in a classic oriental shape with a modern twist. Top green notes contrasts with the sweetness of the ambery base where small green jasmine flowers and carnations grow. A Must smell for those who love the mixture of contrasts. Tolu note was used in several classic balsamic fragrances like Youth Dew but also in hyacinth notes. Here, the balsamic vanilla sandalwood drydown is infused with amber and give depth to a rose-honey-green jasmine molecules accord.

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