Rubaiyat

I must be on a roll because the last few roses I’ve tried have all been excellent. And roses aren’t usually my thing. Even though this lists a bunch of other notes, rose is gonna rose and here it bleeds into everything so I smell roses at every stage. It opens with a soft boozy warm rose that becomes slightly soapy with myrrh after a half hour. It’s a very pleasant soft rose with a touch of spice and with no screechy notes, no geranium, no stale patchouli mix. This perfume uses cashmeran in the base as a texture underneath and it makes a nice, softly sweet drydown with ethyl maltol that slowly peters out after many hours, the raspberry rose impression extended until the end. I am in love with this one and Armonia from the Artefacts series. Both take floral themes, Rose and Iris, and build something thoroughly unisex and unique, laden with the impression of good quality oils and composed of equal parts light and dark in a successful attempt to create something interesting but without gimmick. They both have quiet, delicate, harmonious evolution that feels intended for human skin. I’ve tried and like almost every perfume from Anatole Lebreton and I would have to say Armonia and Rubaiyat are the two made with the softest hand. 4.5 out of 5.

Rubaiyat achieves its intended effect for me: it is intoxicating. Lebreton layers with restraint here, yet imparts a texture that somehow manages to feel peppery, salty, and sweet all at once. It fascinates me that he uses white cognac essential oil, which is distilled from wine lees, reminiscent of muscatel grape, tart and dry in feel. This what perhaps imparts the curiously saline quality when combined with black pepper and rose. It begins with a density that soon sheers out to this effervescent, rosy raspberry malt, but this is by no means merely gourmand in feel. Rubaiyat is rather a warm, almost medicinal cordial, with a myrrh finish, going down easy, the sensation of comfort. I seldom discuss my own synesthesia so as to avoid a barrage of questions, but I can't help but to share that wearing this generates the image of a pewter color, perhaps a little rosy-pink patina at the edges. The confectionary sweetness in the dry down grabs me when normally something like that would not "pass the vibe check" as the kids say these days. I am reminded of the gorgeous (and sadly long discontinued Traversee du Bosphore from L'Artisan Parfumeur. Thumbs up!

Rubaiyat opens with a gorgeous, fresh rose and then you get hints of malt and cognac yet not enough to classify this perfume as boozy. There's some raspberry here too and a distinct note of sweetness that I can't really put my finger on but it comes off as jammy, dense and syrupy yet somehow not sugary (think molasses but also... not molasses? Heck if I know, sorry). There's a spiciness to it as well, especially in the early stages. At one point I could distinctly pick up a black pepper note but then it got dialed back down to a diffuse sense of warmth and depth. All in all it's a very warm and ambery scent with a rounded rosiness and unique sweetness. Some people have mentioned Turkish delights but the only ones I've had were the cheap sort from Lidl so probably not the best comparison. Also, Turkish delights are made with rosewater and I feel like the rose in Rubaiyat is more of a jammy, opulent kind anyhow. Unfortunately the nose note disappears from my skin after about 3 hours. Total wear time for me was a bit over 6 hours and the sillage and projection fell somewhere between strong to moderate.

Rubaiyat starts with dry green citrus and in a few minutes evolves into a sour red wine scent. Then immediately an enormous dark red rose appears, almost black, with a winy undertone. It feels like it scrapes the sky. Simple, but massive. Then the citrus-peel greenness returns, plus some black pepper, and we've transitioned to a peppery green rose with lingering black-red depths. The green citrus (bergamot?) is so sharp it verges on harsh; our ratio of thorns to rose petals is uncomfortably high here. Rubaiyat is shaping up to be a stark, dramatic, dare-I-say masculine rose: no sweetness or softness in the accoutrements, just raw green citrus, sharp black pepper, and tannin-y red wine, combined with a deep velvety dark-red Turkish rose. Finally, at about half an hour in, the ethyl maltol begins to come out; it's known as a "cotton candy" aromachemical. Here with the deep red rose the effect is almost like a rose-infused gumdrop. Candied, dense, intense, a little caramelized, and still full of black pepper! The effect is novel; I'm thinking of sweet treats at the boardwalk carnival at Coney Island, but somehow powerfully rosy and deep garnet red. The candy effect calms down quickly and we just settle into a super-dark, super-black-peppery rose. The Audrey II of roses. I'm not especially a rose lover, and when I do like rose-forward scents I like them meltingly tender (Mohur), amber-sweetened (Rose Flash), or dirty (Epic Woman). But I know there are people out there (Jude Doyle used to be one) who crave an aggro dark rose. And if that's you, Rubaiyat is your scent. Somehow, despite the darkness of the rose, I imagine it set against a blazing blue sky; it has that sort of a bracing, biting quality. It's the rose in the e.e. cummings poem: if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but it will be a heaven of blackred roses my father will be(deep like a rose tall like a rose) standing near by (swaying over her silent) with eyes which are really petals and see nothing with the face of a poet really which is a flower and not a face with hands which whisper This is my beloved my (suddenly in sunlight he will bow, & the whole garden will bow)

Turkish rose, this retro grandmother will introduce you to the presence of this fragrance, only to immediately withdraw and watch you from a distance throughout the life of the perfume all the way into the drydown with her slightly sour gaze. Distinct but shrouded in burning dust and the smell of hot metal, like when you turn on an iron after a long time, a bit of hot tin or a metallic aftertaste on the palate when you peel a pomelo. Interesting, unique, not for people who dont like old rose profile... like me...more female, good longevity and sillage.