786

This is a medicinal patchouli with olibanum and oud giving resinous support with a slight top of pink pepper rose and some green sage. The patchouli being most noticeable followed by oud and olibanum. It’s quite good between a like and a love but closer to a like for me personally. It’s a little typical arab patchouli/oud in terms of concept just the finesse and materials make it better than many others out there. It might be a little formal best suited for special occasions or perhaps Friday prayers etc. It’s not more if you’re looking for one special occasion fragrance to be tour signature at each occasion to slowly create memories with. Now down to price, which seems to be a major issue with this collection. It’s well made the ingredients are better than probably 99% of releases nowadays and you can smell that part and I’d probably prefer this to any artisan creation but a $1000 for this is still steep partly to cover the insane over the top packaging. This IMO would be good at $400-550. At this price point I find far better value in the Oriental Collection. So for example between this and the Oud from that collection I’d definitely pick that even without taking price into consideration which is a considerable difference. For just a fraction more you could get the Oriental Gift Set which includes all four or you could get The Night or Dawn from FM on the grey market for around $650. The Night having materials at least on par with the line and although 1656 from this line has great materials Dawn's deft use of woody ambers is still very beautiful arguably even more beautiful than anything in the Imperial Collection. PS: For reference although materials are top notch and execution is decent I prefer something like Hibiscus Mahajad for its originality and don't care much about the presentation being way over the top myself. Maybe the Imperial Collection’s biggest flaw is it is arguably less creative than the Oriental collection with a drop in the skill of perfumers relative to the Oriental Collection and multiples the price. Overall the collection as a showcase of materials and packaging potential is great but creativity and execution lacking. I would 100% prefer the Oriental Gift Set over any one of the Imperial Collection. So if your blind buy trigger is itching you have an answer. There also seems to be a more reasonably priced collection coming soon ( I did manage to try Salutations) as well as a new magnolia scent for the Oriental Collection soon to be released. I do feel this review has focused quite a bit on price/value but I mean just coming out with six scents and slapping $1000 price tags across the board has to sort of be justified. Who's the target customer? Feels like targeting some arabs especially based on where their only two shops are located one in Nana basically Thailand's arab street the other in Riyadh, KSA. The issue with this I feel the pricing to be pushing a good fragrance with high quality ingredients and over the top packaging. If you have no major reference frame work this might seem peak perfumery which it's not. Maybe look at FM or SL for that. After such a long rant this is still way way better value than LV's oriental scents. Yes these are 2x the price but those are such a cash grab with Ambre Levant being a photoshopped version of Rania J's Ambre Loup. State of the industry I guess. Let's wait n see perhaps a 5k for 100ml will be normalized.