Amber Jasmine
AbdesSalaam Attar Profumo

This one is not to my liking at all. I dislike Egyptian Jasmine, but it's featured prominently in "Amber Jasmine". Its smell here constantly oscillates between girlie and granny. Add to that an amber-base that doesn't smell like the usual sweet ambers but rather smoky and medicinal. I wouldn't be surprised if it contained actual fossilized amber oil judging by its weird scent akin to the smell of a hospital. Well, actually it's the interplay between the jasmine and the amber that creates a bizarre picture in my head of a pink(!) hospital. Somehow the (similar) amber-base in "Amber Oud" smells more harmonious with the oud, much less jarring than with the jasmine. "Amber Jasmine" triggers a vague sense of nostalgia in me and I recognize the quality of the materials which are the only things I like about it. Besides that, this concoction is just way too unpleasant to wear for me. "Amber Jasmine" is something that the nurse from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" would wear.

A simple but at same time multi-nuanced combination which manages to be (despite its minimalism) aristocratic in its variegate articulation and powerfully nostalgic like the music of a french carillon. Quite great aromatic-floral opening immediately rich of evocative power and full of diverse nuances of floral-pollen, jasmine-nectar, soapiness, toasted coffee, Sambuca, pistachio-creams, taste of creamy liqueurs and boozy artisanal pastries. Despite being Amber-Jasmine a floral accord the floral element (yet present) is like a ghost merging its substance in the whole "riverbed" of a generally oriental amberish ambience of handmade liquors, sweet confectionery, honey, waxy-heliotropic soaps, rojal jelly and almonds. This genuine Dubrana's accord conjugates indeed a syrupy (almost candied) redolent jasmine's presence (which is obsessive as a lost affection) with a sort of anisic-heliotropic-waxy decadent amberish vibe. The note of amber is in here "multi-veined", complex, organic, yummy, pastries-taste's nuanced, honeyed and luxurious. This floral amber embraces my skin with a childhood's sweet memory of innocent dreams, happy ceremonies and veritable carefree joy, while elevating higher and higher our senses. There is a sort of victorian soapy atmosphere throughout and a conjured "lost back in a far past" memory of warm Christmas-holidays, rich banquets and happy moments of full dreamy childish life. Average duration of moderate sillage on my skin.