I have tried the two recent Kerosene releases and I am happy to say that Kerosene is not a one hit artist.
Copper Skies is an in-your-face amber scent and as such I am not the most suitable person to talk about, amber is not my favourite note. Copper skies opens with a dirty amber note and honey. The dirty feeling subsides slowly leaving a thick, sweet amber. The reported basil note exists but is not evident by itself. It just adds a needed high pitched note to the low key humming of amber and honey. Copper Skies will definitely please hard core amber lovers.
Notes from Kerosene: basil, coffee, sweet tobacco leaves, cloves, honeycomb, cedar, amber
Notes from my nose: amber, labdanum, honey, incense
The Creature is truly alive! Off it goes with a strong mint opening with an added hint of camphor, just enough to keep it from smelling too toothpaste-y. Just when I think that this is just going to be a fresh cologne in comes an almost dusty, cold and detached note of bamboo. This probably comes from the combination of the official notes of green tea and sweet birch. The opening is extremely impressive. Even more unique than that of R’oud Elements. Pushing the sprayer of this is like rubbing the lamp and letting the genie loose. You have the mint jumping and grabbing you by the nose, you have the bamboo note pulling you to the ground with a milky, sappy smell. It feels very natural, alive in an unembellished way. Without actually having a noticeable fig note it makes me think of a fig tree with all the different aspects of the fig note it can offer: the green of the leaves, the smell of the milk oozing from the twigs, the dry smell of the fig tree wood. There is no sweetness in this one. At this stage Creature brings me to mind the myth of the Dryads, the nymphs living inside trees. I have a vision of a tree cracking open and a creature jumping out of the tree trunk. Initially I get all the milky smells of the wood torn open, the slightly ghostly smell of mint and this is alarming. But then I actually see the Nymph. The drydown is pure green heaven! Everything quiets down and clicks into place. The most heavenly unisex green scent I have smelled in years. I will go out on a limb here and trust the deepest hard-wirings of my mind: I do not have an active memory of how Jacomo Silences smells although I have smelled it many years ago but catching the deep drydown of Creature after about four hours made Silences wake up in my mind. I will have to search for a bottle to verify my memory but I can also tell you that a bottle of Creature is in my immediate shopping plans. Creature has the same insane development as R’oud Elements and slowly morphs into a perfectly balanced green scent that feels equally comfortable on a man’s or on a woman’s skin. All the notes form a perfect solved puzzle where everything has its place, nothing sticking out. Sheer elegance.
Notes from Kerosene: sweet birch, lemon, mint, green tea, jasmine, sage, violet leaves, cypress, moss, patchouli, cedar
Notes from my nose: mint, camphor, bamboo, galbanum, jasmine, moss
Kerosene Perfumes available from House of Kerosene
Reading about Creature put a smile on my face. Your description of feeling like you are seeing the Dryads that live in the trees puts me in mind of things my grandmother used to talk about when we would be out in her garden (she was probably the only gardener in Pennsylvania to grow bamboo in the 1970s).
What is it you don’t like about amber? Is it because it’s so big and round and sweet that it tends to take up a lot of room in a fragrance, not leaving room for a lot of the weird nuances you enjoy?
Maybe. I like amber as a base note but not as a center note. The only amber scent I enjoy is MP&G Ambre Precieux. Amber just makes me feel sad I guess. I get a very strong emotional reaction from it. And some times it just smells too dirty for my tastes. But I understand what you are saying: it is very difficult to allow other notes to breathe around amber.
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Christos
I know that you are very passionate about Green scents.
Have you ever tried Metaboles by Ys Uzak ?
I think you would like that one very much.
Funny you mentioned this. I was looking at this label lately. Thanks for the suggestion. I just got a bottle of Jacomo Silences, another iconic green fragrance and I really can’t understand why this was marketed as a feminine scent. Of course trends have changed but today it is extremely easy for a man to wear.
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