Aftelier Perfumes Wild Roses

 I don't get many emails from perfumers (and after the Thierry Wasser story the other day, I'm not expecting any more any time soon, either!), but when Mandy Aftel dropped me a line asking if I'd like to try her Wild Roses fragrance, I leapt at the chance.  Mandy and I have chatted fragrance a few times, and I always come away from our conversations with an intense impression of how much love Mandy has for her life, and for her fragrances.

I recently named Aftelier Perfume's Tango (on Basenotes) as one of my fragrances of 2012, so Wild Roses intrigued me, Mandy was inspired by walks around rose gardens, and it shows, you can smell everything in this fragrance, from the petals to the stalks, to the grass you're walking underfoot.

Opening with a dark treacle and rose petal accord, this feels a little boozy in the opening, but it's not a sharp booze, more a hint of something well-aged in oak, brandy, possibly, or a dark, dark rum. It feels almost like there is incense in there too, but I don't think there is.  The wood eventually moves to centre-stage, and there's a hint of something bitter and green underneath, which comes from tarragon.  Overall, this is a lush, rich, dark rose, jammy almost, but not sweet.  More of a rose marmalade, than a compote.  It's not sweet and powdery, but thick and deep. Concentrated and cerebral, it is more about the idea of a rose with it's thorns and woodiness, and unexpected bitterness than a photo-real imagining of a rose petal. It's about as different a rose scent from yesterday's DKNY offering as can possibly be.  Beautiful, rather than simply pretty, sophisticated rather than simple.

I have a tiny sample bottle, but I keep getting the urge to dump it into a base of carrier oil, and simply bathe myself in it.  I would if I could.

Mandy has recently moved into making Chef's essences too - we have the one in cocoa. It smells so good, it's practically a perfume in itself!  Almost a shame to cook with it.  But we will ...


The Fine Print: Sample from Mandy Aftel.

This post: Aftelier Perfumes Wild Roses originated at: Get Lippie on January 24th 2013 All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper