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Posted by Dain, Saturday, February 09, 2008 1:10 PM (Eastern)
Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (1781)
From my very first entry into this mad, intelligent perfume world, I embraced niche (I also embraced classics, but in retrospect I was not prepared for Guerlain), in part because I detest corporate identities (a recurring theme on this blog) and in part because niche is actually an easier entrypoint (the structures are not as complicated). The major complaint among aficionados, fast turning cliché, is how mainstream perfumery is aggressively banal: fruity-floral and saccharine. Perfumery's countercultural answer is often expressed in niche lines, and Montale is very, very niche. The products are (1) prohibitively expensive, and (2) exotic.
Among all perfume ingredients, none is quite so mystical as oud. Costly and exceptionally rare, and orientalism to boot—there is little doubt in my mind that this is Montale's major pull. The interest is well deserved: the juice is of the highest quality, as heavy-handed (but not as dimensionally rich) as parfum and incredibly tenacious. Like an absolutely proper niche, Black Aoud is unapologetic, likely to inspire orgasmic frenzies—love it or hate it, indifference is for the mainstream. Just a fleeting hint of sweetness before a blood-red rose enters in full glory, real rose, which is slightly awe-inspiring, given how many perfumes, all with "rose" in its title, cheat you in this regard. Thorny oud follows rapidly, a medicinal bitterness that is almost fluorescent in its astringency. Though it shrivels somewhat unpleasantly in the drydown, the pairing of rose and oud (la belle et la bête) is consistent throughout its very long duration.
Labels: beauty notes, montale, perfume reviews
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