Ashore
Amouage (2020)

In my opinion perfumer Mackenzie Reilly has managed to deliver a seashore-under-the-dazzling-sun mood for this one through the medium of a solar jasmine. This a perfume of clarity, inducing a sense of open vistas – ‘on a clear day you can see forever'.
As a jasmine perfume full stop, it will have limited appeal to those who are not interested in such things. But to those who are, Ashore offers a heady, yet clean and fresh jasmine, the scent of the blossoms, with a suggestion of the plant's foliage coming through in how sun-kissed the interpretation is. It's a carried-on-a-breeze, living scent, potent but without some of the heaviness associated with certain distillations. As a jasmine soliflore, the supporting accents are on the edges of perception: a gentle spiking with some pure, unclouded incense, the subtle warmth of turmeric and a touch of cardamom – all handled with a deftness that doesn't detract from the floral flare, while successfully evoking the warm environs of this heat-loving flower.
I found it disarming in its simplicity. The clarity of expression means it would probably work in most weathers, although I have only worn it in winter. It reminded me a little of the delicacy of ruh motia, a distillate of unopened jasmine buds (hence motia or pearl-like), but no doubt it will also be reminiscent of other jasmine perfumes done in this light-filled, almost transparent style. Whether it is distinctive enough to entice you if you have already encountered some of those is going to be, as it always is, up to you. Also, whereas something like a motia gracefully fades after a few hours, the jasmine here has the persistence of a nag and for me ultimately outstayed its welcome. The reason is probably entirely to do with skin chemistry – wearing something fresh and perky for hours on end usually means it ends up smelling tired and tiring.

Amouage Ashore (2020) really just feels like a lightened-up Amouage Portrayal Woman (2019) full-stop, but I don't want to shortchange anyone here so I'll elaborate. MacKenzie Reilly chimed in on this one as she did with Amouage Meander (2020), with her chosen inspiration being Oman's eastern shores. The Renaissance Collection is meant to invoke the feeling of being in key locations or in scenarios traditionally found around Oman, and I guess this is the beachy vacation one. All of the scents in the collection are not explicitly gendered, but come in gendered bottles to imply where they might be most enjoyed. That said, a good beachy jasmine perfume can work for anyone with enough confidence, so I'd call this unisex with an open mind. At it's core, Amouage Ashore is a sort of ozonic floral fragrance with an ambergris/ambroxan base laced with the usual oriental incense and wood tricks, very light and transparent, with a bit of punch when caught in wafts. It doesn't feel very much like the Amouage most older fans know, but I guess that is sort of the point with this line.

The opening of Ashore is all about green cardamom, pink pepper, and that bright "solar accord" which I can only imagine is the ozonic aldehyde element. A lot of this collection leans very heavily on pink pepper, which sort of gives it a designer-y feel (for better or worse), since pink pepper has been abused by designer perfume for the better part of 15 years. The light jasmine sambac note meets a dry rose, and reminds me of the jasmine tea feel of Diptyque Olene (1987), being the best part of this fragrance, The base is ambroxan buffeted with a small speck of norlimbanol woody/incense scratch, but it is used lightly here so it doesn't feel like sandpaper as it does in something like Dior Sauvage (2015), but rather just like sand. Finish it off with a powdery dusting of sandalwood and there you have it, beachy jasmine. Wear time is at eight hours, while sillage is moderate, but this can be oversprayed for effect. If it isn't hightly implied already, this is a summer fragrance, the fun carefree one of the collection, and the one I like most (being the only one I fully like).

The price point for something this Western and designer-like in feel stretches the imagination a bit, and the creative "renaissance" Renaud Salmon seems to be taking Amouage in with this line is decidedly more French than even the classic original Guy Robert compositions for Amouage, so take that as you may. Portrayal Woman is basically this perfume with added tonka, tuberose, and a lot of thickening agents, so they could be seen as day and night versions of each other in some ways, but Portrayal Woman is defintely the better performer for the money. For many Western guys, a white floral will never be fit for men, and these same dudes balked at both Givenchy Insensé (1993) and Jean-Paul Gaultier Fleur du Mâle (2007), explaining why they both became discontinued unicorns worshipped by cultish fans, so I can't expect much acceptance here, but I really like Amouage Ashore and feel it could work on just about anyone if the price is right, especially if white sands and jasmine in the breeze sound like your idea of paradise. Thumbs up.