Sandalia Collection : Miana
Acqua di Sardegna (2017)

Hey guys! I have a brilliant idea! Let's remake Guerlain Shalimar (1925) but cut out about half of the notes, make it even more powdery than it is and really cheap-smelling, then stick it in a bottle for $250! What? Not a good idea? Well apparently the Abaton Bros. thought it was, because they did just that with their "luxury" range within the Acqua di Sardegna line, called the Sandalia Collection. In this particular instance, Sandalia Collection: Miana (2017) is the culprit, and is quite literally a modern-ish aromachemical remix of the revered Shalimar, right on down to trace uses of synthetic civetone in the base. You'll find exactly half the notes here that you will in Shalimar, but thirty times more market puffery and an epic elegiac detailing the deep meaning behind the fragrance itself. Something something ancient formula, something something Monti Miana, something something complete. There, that's all you're getting from me. If you want to read the book that is the brand history behind the Sandalia Collection or fall asleep while the virtues of the range are extolled to you, just go to the brand's webpage and knock yourself out. I can already say this is a fragrance without an audience (besides gullible trust fund daughters or wives of hedge fund fathers and husbands) because Shalimar fans will just keep wearing Shalimar, especially since it's actually cheaper and better, while people who want the usual luxury niche fare will see this as odd and dated.

The opening of Miana is all about that 1920's powdery musky oriental vibe, with the iris hitting you right at once, mixed with mandarin, bergamot, and lemon. There are ionones galore here that are doing most of the heavy floral lifting into the heart, with a lot of the classic florals found in Shalimar save maybe the rose completely excised from the equation, although some rosewood from Shalimar's older sister Coty Emeraude (1921) does appear. The powder gets more intense and the civetone also comes into view, being very compressed and urinous without the richer rounder qualities of the real thing (but also without the fecal note), then goes quiet as some incense tones and sandalwood tones materialize alongside vanillin in the base. Miana needs to at least get the vanillin part right because the overdose of the stuff is literally what made Shalimar emerge from an experiment Jacques Guerlain conducted with his uncle's creation Jicky (1889). The vanilla and woody musky tones join hay-like tonka and opponax. The dry down is very dry, even drier than the final stages of the masculine-learning eau de cologne variant of Shalimar, making Miana almost feel like another flanker. Being so lost in trying to put a spin on such an instantly recognizable smell to perfume fans is the biggest problem Miana has, but performance otherwise is not lacking. Ten hours with moderate projection for three quarters of it is what you'd expect, and best use will be in formal situations due to the classic nature of the style. While men can and do wear fragrances like this, the common perception of something like this is it's for women, but you decide.

So we have someone trying to reinvent the Shalimar wheel with less complexity, less challenge, and less personality, but many times more the cost of what savvy shoppers can have Shalimar for in any concentration. Again, I don't think this has an audience among hobbyists or even people with a broader but still casual knowledge of perfume, although the kind of person that will like something on the virtues of being new and expensive alone will likely take this home. Outside of new money spendthrifts with a dearth of cultural or perfume knowledge, who else is going to buy the bastard child of Shalimar and Lalique pour Homme (1997) for ten times the price of either online? Not I says the fly, and I can't imagine anyone else with two cents to rub together will either. To be fair, I don't hate this, and if you served it to me in an Avon bottle or said it was from Armaf or something, I'd be like "okay this is a budget inspired take on a classic, groovy". But as it stands, I'm being served up an inbred grandkid of Coty Emeraude's and Guerlain Shalimar's second cousins, and a life story that pitches the poor child as some heir to the throne of fine Italian perfume for the meager price of nearly 300 clams. No thanks, I'd rather be sold on 300+ years of father and son perfume tradition using ancient techniques from Babylon in poorly-labelled bottles with cheap caps, because at least the perfume in them shows some modicum of refinement. Thumbs down.