Kairos

At first I guessed that Kairos was a honeyed lavender; it has an air of sweet-meets-dry, almost-herbal cleanness to it. I get a lot of bitter almond, which makes it feel like the best spa in the world, and an underlying delicious creamy-resinous blend with lots of orange blossom. Morning sunlight and healing lotions. Ritual gongs and guided meditations and subdued luxury. Views of the endless desert, where some say UFOs have landed. Kairos feels like what a cologne might have evolved into after a thousand years in a chrysalis state. The Shai-Hulud of cologne. All the bitter orange distilled down to sweetness and all the crisp, cool notes long since burned off. It's meant to be inspired by Ancient Greece, and I guess I can see it -- that sense of fresh mornings and ancient presence -- but it's far more soothing and comforting than anything Homer would recognize. Anatole Lebreton is consistently creative as a perfumer, and he goes extremely hard in whatever direction he's going. It works for me when he's focused on a theme that smells pleasant to me, as Kairos's sweet orange-blossom-and-almond does, and not when he's hammering a note I don't like as much (Bois Lumiere is nuclear honey, Brioche is painfully potent anise, Incarnata is the kind of pastel candied violet that makes me almost nauseous). Know Thyself -- or get samples of everything and find out.

Instant love as someone who enjoys naturals. This is a hidden gem. You can tell this has pure orange blossom extract, deep honeyed green sweetness, plus the petitgrain and orange creating a more full accord. Lovely creamy smooth natural almond tonka vanilla, equally gourmand sweet and woody dry, no cough medicine or plastic cupcake. The peru balsam adds a complexity to the vanilla base, a soft incense-like quality without going into church or temple territory. To me it's more like the serenity of a tranquil ancient spa. Has a long lasting "your skin but better" drydown, like you washed with a rich almond/vanilla soap. Leans a bit feminine but in a mature way so overall unisex. One of my new favorites and a refreshing newer release focusing on refinement of familiar notes embracing their natural quality rather than any new notes or gimmicks. My first try from this house definitely will have to try more

This is a stellar composition, mainly based on orange blossom, almond, and vanilla. As always with this brand, the ingredients feel very rich and refined, the blend is so balanced. Floral, oriental and a bit gourmand. It's creamy and milky, but there is a green bitter petitgrain throughout to lift the composition and make it airier, less sweet.

I have very hard time with this house but this scent is absolutely gorgeous. Heady, intoxicating deliciosness of orange blossom and almond

It's a hot summer day, the rain has stopped a while ago and you can smell wet dust on the street, partly baked by the sunny previous days (at other times it could have been compared to saffron scratchiness). You enter a flower shop, freshly cut tall hollow green hard stems of flowers from which white almond tanning milk flows. Not a very original women's spring-summer perfume - one in a hundreds recently. Strong, thick, sweeter vanilic and in the summer it can certainly be suffocating and overwhelming.

Very almond and vanilla forward for the first hour with an interesting green bitter contrast here and there. This is kind of my kryptonite so I was never going to get on with this one. It’s not overly sweet or synthetic, quite the opposite, but you really must love almond, the scent of old-fashioned almond/floral beauty products, to be drawn to this. The later drydown is an altogether different story. It does retain a nutty quality but it is more about the tonka bean and peru balsam, quite unusual and appealing with a soft unique buttery flavor. This drydown, my favorite part, lasts a good 24 hours on fabric. 3 out of 5.

This fragrance has an almost eldritch array of beautiful dark nuances that make this seem dark yet beautiful at first. The almond and orange blossom seem gothic and yet somehow still clean and placid. After a couple of hours, it becomes less dark and the almond becomes sweeter.