October 14, 2007 7:16 PM,  Dain said...

Violets are nice. They are very motherly, though sometimes they're over-candied.

October 14, 2007 7:48 PM,  Colleen Shirazi said...

Aoud Blossom is an indestructible violet. I put a few dabs on in the morning, and could still smell it quite strongly on myself (close to the skin) past midnight.

It isn't candied here, it's a bit powdery and soapy. It's nice but I feel it's...conservative...for me?

I tried Boise Vanille out with Aoud Roses Petals today. This just might be "it."

What's odd is ARP, which is a strong rose scent (rose, saffron and oud, bit o' cedar in the drydown) hardly smells rosy at all over the Boise Vanille. The whole works becomes one of those rose-in-the-background blended perfumes.

I'll have to see what happens tonight though...yesterday, BV faded out long before Aoud Blossom (hence the last x hours of almost pure soapy violets).

October 14, 2007 9:05 PM,  Dain said...

I can see that... violets also make me think of Victorian sentimentality, which is pretty conservative. Maybe you can get Boise Vanille and a couple to layer over it as the mood strikes you?

October 14, 2007 11:02 PM,  Colleen Shirazi said...

They are so...expensive. The price here appears to be fixed. I checked all of the sites I could think of that carry Montale...parfums raffy, aedes, luckyscent, four seasons, there's a Canadian etailer too, theperfumeshoppe.com (which is cheaper, but who knows what the shipping's going to be)...

The cheapest place is Suravi, but only because they have a 10% Basenotes and MUA discount. They don't have the scents I want up, but it's probably a matter of emailing them and asking.

Other than that, there is theperfumedcourt, but all I saw there was an 8-ml decant.

I've heard you can order it from Paris and it's cheaper that way, but more aggravating.

Haven't decided yet which I like better, Aoud Roses Petals or Aoud Blossom (White Aoud is out of the running).

October 15, 2007 3:03 PM,  Dain said...

But if they last as long as they do, and unfold in such a complex fashion, you can consider them like "parfum", which are around $200 for a tiny bottle anyway. Imo, though, parfums don't need layering.

October 15, 2007 4:56 PM,  Colleen Shirazi said...

What I've read is the Aouds keep very well, but the regular EDP's don't necessarily. In short if I got one Aoud, it would be fairly safe to say it wouldn't go bad. For the regular EDP it would be a decision between 50-ml and 100-ml, but it might depend how fast it goes.

These don't need layering...I like to layer. I have it in mind to get two scents that could work on their own, or else be layered together to create a third scent. Besides, I like the idea of wearing something next to unique. Unless I bump into someone with the same notion of the same two scents, applied in the same proportion, it's unlikely I'll smell this on anyone else. To me there's nothing sacred about perfume; if it works, it works.

Aoud Blossom is pulling ahead, if only because I still don't think of myself as a rose scent person. They don't seem to sell the Aouds in smaller bottles, so the Aoud factor is key here.