Perfume Review: Montale Aoud Flowers

"...red in aspect, sweet in taste" Samuel ha-Nagid Montale does not make it easy to write reviews about their rose aouds. There are just so many of them and although they all are, of course, different, the differences are not incredibly striking. This is not a criticism, actually, just a statement of a fact. I somehow managed to turn into a rose-aoud collector of sorts, but if a non-collector owned, say, Aoud Rose Petals or Aoud Queen Roses or Aoud Damascus, would she really need Aoud Flowers too? Probably not. And if a person wrote posts about a couple of other rose aouds, would the words to describe Aoud Flowers come easy to her? Definitely not. And yet, because I like the scent so much, I feel compelled to review it. I think that what makes Aoud Flowers special in its own unique way are honey and incense. After the oud-full, recognizably "Montale" beginning, the flowers, roses and something else, something that, because of the heady rose and the oud accord, is not easy to indentify, but which is not rose ...start to blossom. The flowers smell exotic, they smell...expansive, for a lack of a better word. They are wonderfully opulent. And as they open their luscious petals on my skin, they reveal their nectarous, honeyed nature. The honey note here, blended with the dark and spicy aoud and the languid flowers, is absolutely stunning. The list of the notes (oud, white flowers, rose, honey, sandalwood) does not include frankincense, and yet this is the note that I smell - very distinctly!- in the base of Aoud Flowers. The peppery incense adds a certain dry elegance to the extravagantly lush top and middle notes, it adds beautiful soul to the breathtaking carnality of aoud and flowers. If you don't own a Montale aoud yet, I would highly recommend this one. And if you are a fellow maniac connoisseur, this has to be in your collection. I don't seem to be able to find Aoud Flowers at ony regular US-based Montale retailers, but it should be available in the Montale boutique in Paris, and can be ordered over the phone. Photo by Camilla Akrans, source, lundlund.com.