Althaïr
Eau de Parfum, Parfums de Marly (2023)

Hamid Merati-Kashani is the mastermind behind Parfums de Marly's sweet and woody-ambery DNA, the one you either love or hate, and it's funny that it has taken this long for the brand to finally give the Iranian perfumer his due after nearly 15 years of trying to convince us these fragrances were inspired by the perfumery of the Court de Marly. The Middle East-meets-Western Europe mashup of sweet, opulent resins and citric-floral nuances isn't lost on me in the Parfums de Marly style, it's just built-for-cost to the point that it feels like a bad remaster of fragrances done better by the likes of Amouage, Al Haramin, or As Gharhali. The over-amped woody-ambers are thankfully not present in Althaïr by Parfums de Marly; and once again they employ the services of Hamid Merati-Kashani, the until-recently ghost perfumer of hits such as Parfums de Marly Herod (2012), and Parfums de Marly Layton (2016). However, all the plasticene sweetness and overuse of white musks remains, so this is another overpriced spruce goose the likes of which you are better off waiting for to trickle down into the catalogs of Armaf or Lataffa, who do this style better for less.

The opening of this return-to-form for the brand has hints of cardamom and cinnamon in gourmand fashion, with a floral vanilla and orange blossom vibe that plunges rather quickly into sweet praline candy notes and a familiar tonka riff. Elemi and saffron overused as ever in this style also flit and flick about in the soup of musks and synthetic base materials like ambroxan, cashmeran, guaiac wood and pink pepper. Once it all settles, it quite reminds me of a lighter, slightly drier take on Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille (2007), or something in this train of thought that can be worn in situations where you don't necessarily want to absolutely bowl over your surroundings with bone-crushing walls of thick sweetness. Make no mistake, this is still plenty sweet, although the intervening hand of co-perfumer Ilias Ermenidis may have had something to do with keeping the cloying predilections of the Parfums de Marly house style in check. Still, this is not one for me, and if I know my readership. likely not many of you, either. Performance is outstanding, although that is a given when perusing the house of Marly itself. Althaïr almost has to deliver in this regard, lest it be rejected by the faithful.

It's an interesting but not unexpected turn to see new corporate owners of Parfums de Marly and Initio Parfums take the former back to its biggest successes, of massively-overpriced "club bangers", worn by both status-drunk elites and status-obsessed parnevu alike, whether they pay full retail for the bottles like the former, or buy them fenced by organized retail crime rings off the back of a beaten-up Honda Civic parked a block away from where they were stolen, or off some unscrupulous eBay seller who has these on day-one at a half the price. The rest of us just wait for the inevitable discounter purge and buy them at semi-legitimate gray market markdowns, rather than funding the addictions of local shoplifting meth-heads or the Human trafficking of MS-13 by buying them on a corner or on Mercari. On one hand, it's nice to see some brand integrity on the part of Parfums de Marly, as the past few years have seen quite a bit of wandering from what made them popular in the first place, much to the chagrin of their dedicated following. On the other hand, I never really liked what made them popular in the first place and still don't, so you'll have to make do with my indifference on this fragrance as well. Neutral