Memento Mori

An animalic rosy ambergris that is soft at the same time! It's an incredible balanced rosy, ambergris, civet, & orris butter. it's not a beast mode 80s powerhouse like blend rather than a contemporary ambergris rose blend. The patchouli is there but hidden within the animalic mix. This blend is just beatitude and close to skin, sensual, and very erotic. I believe i have found the optimum gem in this collection. Incredibly beautiful.

An excellent example of the unique DNA of this perfume house: either you love it or hate it. For me, it’s the former. The buttery open is comforting without being common. The rose is exactly the kind of rose I enjoy — watery and delicate. The animalic heart is a purr, not a roar. Worthy of a full bottle.

An animalic-musky rose with an oily start. The opening presents a greasy, buttery accord — one that might have seen the inside of a barbecue grill. Fortunately, the butter quickly fades, giving way to a sweet, resinous, animalic rose. The rose leans into its sweeter side, while a honeyed resin (with clear animalic facets) builds the foundation. Despite the ominous name, the fragrance itself is far from bleak — it’s a well-executed animalic rose with steady, grounded beauty.

A sample of this arrived today. I have it on my hand as we speak. I've had it on my hand for about 5 hours now. This is not so much a perfume, as it is concept art in a bottle. I love the concept (make a scent that reminds us of our mortality - Memento Mori: Remember Death), and I love the fact that someone made this scent. But I don't like the scent itself. And I don't think it was made to be loved as a wearable perfume either. As I said, this is more art than a perfume you douse yourself in. I don't get any flower notes, rose, patchouly or amber from this. What I smell is Phenylacetic acid (honey/urine), a bit of the civet and the butter. That Phenylacetic acid note is very strong. I do understand that some people get urine from this, and I do understand that some people get honey. Personally I get a bit of both. The drydown is more on the honey side, but it doesn't smell like lush, fresh, sensual honey. There is something wrong with this honey. It's like it comes from a very ill little bee. Memento Mori opens with a crazy strong blast of this honey/urine, and at first it smells really vile. It's like a liquid danger sign. Don't come any closer, or you'll catch something serious, and die. Yes, it smells like bacteria, or disease. Something unfresh, unclean and sickening. It reminds me of hospitals and nursing homes for old people. It doesn't smell like clean hospital, but more like disease, used incontinence diapers and corners the cleaning personnel has forgotten for a long time. There is a very bodily, intimate smell in this, but it's not a sensual, sexy kind of intimate scent. This smells more like the sweaty body of a very ill person, someone so sick that they don't have much time left. There is a unfresh, decaying kind of vibe to this unpleasant honey like sweetness, and it also has a medicinal feel (like a body filled with lots of medicine, trying to battle the severe illness). I thought the butter note in this would be a lovely creamy, salty thing, but it's not. It just adds weird smelly cheese nuances to the urine like honey smell. Not a perfume I would buy, but I will cherish my sample. It's a very unique creation, and a crazy original concept. Glad I've tried it. Sillage starts off extremely strong, but the scent slowly dries down to a skin scent. Longevity is great. I've had it on for 5 hours now, and it's still going strong. I've even washed my hands, and I can still smell it. :)

Because I normally adore everything Aftelier, I'm going to speak up with a caveat -- sample first! This one is clearly a love or hate choice. I've learned so much from sampling, researching, and finally buying here (Aftelier's Secret Garden), that I'm going to hazard a guess as to why some of us so dislike this one -- Phyenylacetic acid. In large doses, it's quite unpleasant and some of us may be more sensitive to it than others. Outside of the bottle, I get sweet wood (presumably the patchouly isolate), and oysters. (Ambergris. Not my favorite but usually any civet overwhelms and makes up for it.) Once the bottle is open, it's such a scrubber I can't even keep smelling long enough to fully describe, but for me... it starts with rancid cheese, then bile, and after that it starts to get bad. So bad, that I quickly doused it with Aftelier's Cuir de Gardenia -- which worked, so that I didn't have to hack off my arm. I'm very curious as to how this smells to someone with a different nose from mine:)