Siberian Summer
Areej le Doré (2019)

SIBERIAN SUMMER – Le Dore (2019)

Green, Green, Green!

With so many different green notes (balsam, lime, birch, bergamot, galbanum, oakmoss, vetiver), it is surprising that the initial blast is of the slightly sweet, synthetic musk. However, this is a pleasant way to begin this olfactory experience. The musk engages the nose and allows the other notes to slowly introduce themselves.

These green notes balance themselves between astringent (lime, birch, vetiver) and warm (balsam, bergamot, galbanum, oakmoss). The musk is always present to round them out and the cedar lends a dryness, leading you from the heart to the dry down. The sole floral, jasmine, is to my nose lost in the mix. The camphor is present for only a brief time and seems to work with the musk to create the animalic, civet-like undertone to the scent.

Quality of ingredients is exceptional. Projection is minimal. This wears close to the skin. It seems to me to be a masculine scent, but a strong, mature, and/or forceful female personality could pull it off. To be worn at play, not for romance or the office.

Quite unusual and a good alternative to those Christmas Tree balsam scents that begin well and end in cookie dough madness. This is for those who love the scent of pine and fir trees and seems ideal for wearing during the Christmas holiday season.

Siberian Summer opens with a coniferous green fir balsam, adding just a hint of smoky camphor and birch tar support. As the composition moves to its early heart, the green coniferous fir remains, soon morphing into more of a relatively sharp green pine rising from the base, coupling with relatively benign musk. During the late dry-down, the green pine and musk tandem recedes but remains, now pairing with slightly powdery vanilla and barely sweet amber through the finish. Projection is average, and longevity very good at around 10 hours on skin.

The coniferous green open of Siberian Summer smells heavenly. It captures the smell of a coniferous green forest quite well without ever going overboard. When the composition adds the pine accord from the base it only reinforces the composition's biggest strength. The musk that is used to pair with the coniferous notes is likely synthetic (unlike the stuff used in many of the other Areej le Dore compositions), but while to many this may come as sacrilege, I find the synthetic stuff here much easier to digest and wear. Yes, it lacks the depth of the real stuff, but in this case it just feels "right" and never overpowers the other ingredients like the real stuff does in other compositions from the house. The only negative to this otherwise fine effort is in the late dry-down, where the composition turns to a very generic vanilla and amber driven powdery finish that is completely forgettable. The bottom line is the $160 per 30ml bottle Siberian Summer starts off outstanding but ends in a bit of a whimper, earning a 3.5 to 4 star out of 5 "very good" to "excellent" rating and a solid recommendation to all, especially coniferous composition lovers. It may end relatively mundane, but the journey in this case is worth it.

The first thing to hit me after spraying two sprays of Siberian Summer was a beautiful musk. It pounced on me like a cat, this was followed by lime, bergamot and a smoky camphor note.

The musk is nice and slightly sweet which is mixed in with a green pine and I'm picking up on a lot of smoke.

It smells like your walking towards a piney musky smelling forest where there is smoke in the distance coming from within the forest. There is this slight woody aroma underneath the musk that is very nice indeed. It compliments the piney smoky musk.

Eventually the vetiver comes with this woodyness and it adds a nice contrast to the musky pine scent accord. Though in the basenotes the cedar comes into play and that woodyness makes the scent smell very dry like smelling piney musk in a desert.

Now it smells nice for a good while though it is a bit astringent and harsh smelling especially if you try to smell the scent up close. Then it does become a bit one dimensional and I do detect a pissy urine accord that I don't like.

The musk will keep tantalizing your nose though I am not keen on the cedar and when it turns very dry and I mean desert dry. At this stage I cannot help feeling that I have had enough.

The longevity is good with over several hours and more but like a lot from the range the projection is below average. This does stay close to you.