Shiso
Aftelier

Hmmm... I smell bright citrus at first, quickly fading into kitchen herbs. The backbone is that essential oil smell, a complicated pool of woody, herbal, floral abstraction. The weird part is a strong note that reminds me of something toxic, like oil-based paint or maybe acetone. All told, this isn't really winning me over.

The opening is a bittersweet accord of herbal notes, mainly mint, along with something l interpret as anise. This accord has a leafy, but not overly green feel. Shortly after, a light touch of cinnamon comes to the fore, joined a little later by woods, incense & a smoky black tea of the lapsang souchong variety. lt then settles close to the skin, but just as l think this fragrance is about to turn all sweet & powdery, the herbal, leafy accord returns, & continues to weave in & out for almost the whole duration. There's a soft patchouli in the base, & it all lasts a very respectable eight hours on me before fading out.
A very interesting fragrance with some surprising twists & turns, & the longest-lasting of the Afteliers that l've tried. l'm not sure it's quite "me", but l'm intrigued by its mix of warm & cool notes, & it definitely merits further wearings to explore it further.

I expected Shiso to be green, bitter and verdant like the CDG Leaves Shiso, but it is completely different. This is a soft old fashioned spice woods with a light green touch to the opening. The overall effect of the fragrance is similar to a spiced green tea blend. Aftelier Shiso opens with green peppers, cloves and aged woods that have a dry but mellow resinous tone. I went back to the Aftelier story about the fragrance and can now see that this is not intended to be Shiso, but a japanese geisha perfume that uses shiso. There is a green pepper tartness up front that is dusted over with aged clove spice. Initially the spicy aspect is most dominant. The base of agarwood, patchouli and sandalwood adds an ancient stored-in-a-basement-wood box aroma to the base notes. There is a warmth in the base that is probably from the clove mixed with woods and smells like labdanum to me, but it is probably a deception.

For the first wearing I intended to give this fragrance a neutral rating, but as I remove myself from the expectations that come from the descriptive title "shiso" and its green color, I realize that this is a very interesting spiced woods scent. A traditional generations old warmth is there, with a slight incense wood buzz, and a soft memory of good things that is very pleasant. I wish the fragrance had a different name and was brown in color so that expectations could be managed better. If this scent was from any other house I would give it an enthusiastic thumbs up, but I have been spoiled by the fantastic blending and high level of Aftelier fragrances, so I expected more. The color, the name, the expectations based on other great Aftelier perfumes, all have ne disappointed a little. But, putting biases aside, the fragrance itself is pretty sublime and good!

To me, Shiso smelled like camphor wood and powder, and then drifted down in an hour or so to level out into a soft cinnamon incense fragrance. I could definitely envision an ancient Kyoto teahouse (where geishas typically entertained). It smelled like something that a dignified, sophisticated Japanese lady might have worn years ago.

Shiso parfum is said to be based on a Geisha powdered-perfume formula, and it does not disappoint in that way. Shiso smells immediately mysterious and dark tea houses, where the accentuated facial features and expressions of pale-faced Geishas wrapped in many mysterious layers of silk kimonos wrapped in obis that were stored in protective camphor closets and smell of such. It smells of shiso, that unusual Japanese herb used to wrap meats and sashimi, and that has a complex aroma that is both green-herbal, powdery and spicy (it has a distinctively cumin-like nuance about it). Other apparent notes are camphor, agarwood and spices, but they are all blended to a powdery, woody, herbal and spicy-warm concoction that it's difficult to smell any note in particular besides the shiso, camphor and agarwood that realy stand out.This is exactly how I would have imagined a perfume that dusts a Geisha's artfully-made-hair to smell like.