Perfume Review: Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Bahiana

Continuing on my quest for a perfect pineapple fragrance, I stumbled upon Bahiana by Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier. The company’s latest offering was launched to celebrate the Year of Brazil and named after the state of Bahia. With notes of Brazilian orange, caipirinha limon, mandarin, tagette, green leaf, rosewood, gaiac wood, elemi, amber, musk and coconut, it reminds the lovely Luckyscent people of pineapple, “not drenched with syrup, but freshly cut, with a startling trace of green”. I am happy for them and not too unhappy about the fact that personally I do not get even a hint of pineapple in Bahiana. What I get instead is a lovely, soft and fresh citrus, the essence of a carefree summer in a bottle. On my skin, the two main notes in Bahiana are orange and mandarin. Sprinkled with sparkling lemon juice, softened by a judicious touch of coconut, the fruits are resting on a slightly dry, vaguely woody base. Judging by the notes (rosewood, gaiac wood), I expected a richer, darker drydown and a much drier, perhaps even harsher scent in general. However, every note here seems to be in just the right proportion; the fruits and the woods balance each other beautifully. The result is a scent that never leans dangerously close to being fruit-salad-like and yet achieves that effervescent, lighthearted, exotic quality that so many summery scents struggle to attain and fail miserably, in effect ending up smelling like the much dreaded fruit salad. Bahiana is not the most long-lasting fragrance (it lasts three-four hours on my skin), however I do not mind re-applying. Each new spray of Bahiana puts me in an irrationally happy mood. This joyful, bright fragrance is available at Luckyscent, $145.00 for 100ml. *The image is from Luckyscent.com.