Persolaise Review: Amber Aquilaria from Electimuss (2014)

Far too many brands around today rely on aspirational marketing, bling and hackneyed ideas to try to make an impact on potential buyers. Cue: Electimuss, a perfect example of rather dubious style over substance. That said, it does offer at least one scent that’s worth a second sniff.

Forget Rhodanthe, Platinum Muscus and Venti. Respectively, they are a faux-Arabian leathery rose, a sickly cocktail of laundry musks and a weak-willed, fruity aromatic, and they have nothing new to add to their genres. Saggita is marginally better. In a somewhat forgettable way, it combines milky woods with the banana-inflected, white floral notes reminiscent of Bertrand Duchaufour‘s Amaranthine.

The only one which made me sit up and pay attention was Amber Aquiliaria. Don’t worry: the second part of its name is easily dismissed. There’s nothing oud-like in evidence here. But the amber facet is presented in intriguing fashion. It’s almost as though the perfumer has taken that most quintessential of modern ambers – Christopher Sheldrake‘s Ambre Sultan for Serge Lutens – and replaced the smoky herbal facets with a plummy, sharply medicinal cognac note. Everything else is familiar – the nocturnal vanilla, the singed labdanum, the suggestion of dry citruses at the start – but the evocation of dimly-lit bars does add a welcome twist. The impeccably groomed, dishdash-wearing sheikh of Ambre Sultan has swapped his Abu Dhabi office for a suite at a five-star hotel in London… and he’s just about to start his holiday with a glass of Remy Martin. Interesting.

[Review based on a sample of extrait provided by Electimuss in 2015.]

Persolaise


Note: when it was first published, this post contained an erroneous statement about the creative directorship of the Electimuss brand. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.