Hue Город Мертвых Королей

Of the works I have tried from Anna Zworykina, HUE is the most transportive. It is also the most unusual and unique. A smoky-resinous oud perfume displaying aromatic, floral, fruity, mossy, and aquatic facets. The perfume delivers a vivid olfactory experience of HUE, the former ancient capital of Vietnam, cruising the Huong River in a rustic rowboat through the pillars rising out of the water to support the wooden houses of the villagers. Stopping by the river market to purchase some aromatic herbs, spices, and fresh fruit, followed by a visit to the many temples in the city for some agarwood incense burning and meditation. Anna uses a combination of seaweed, choya nakh, and pink lotus to suggest the green waters of the river, oakmoss, vetiver, and mitti attar for grounding the imagery of the shore. Green waters adorned with lotus flowers and mosses embellishing the pillars of the houses. A combination of exotic fruits, florals, and aromatic herbs follows the green-aquatic opening, welcoming the wearer to the nearby river markets flanking the shore. These facets are delicately carved. Don't expect big strokes of mango and champaca or frangipani. They are used with a light touch to stimulate the imagination. Finally, the base greets you into the temple with a prominent agarwood note displaying a light ceremonial smoke accord, lavishly adorned with resins like myrrh and spicy-lemony elemi. The buzz outside the temple goes silent allowing for deep meditation. I love HUE but only wear it as a personal scent. It feels more like an experience rather than a perfume. I tried wearing it out and felt like wasting it. Unique and transportive for when you crave those South-East Asian trips and you want to skip the airport queues. Review of the Pure Parfum version. IG:@memory.of.scents

The smell of an ancient, exotic stilt town Hue is another Zworykina's dark marine fragrance after Venetian Red. It transports you to a village built over a river or sea somewhere in Asia (Hue is indeed an ancient capital of Vietnam). You can easily picture green water full of vegetation (pink lotus, seaweed notes) flowing slowly around numerous wooden bridges and stilts covered in gluey substance and mosses (oakmoss, woods and cleverly used agarwood) on which the village is built upon. Zworykina mixes this dark, green accord with a sea shell accord made of Choya Nakh balsam (made by distillation of dry roasted seashells in India) and Mitti attar (the traditional Indian petrichor attar) giving it an unusual, complex marine character. All of that is richened by tropical fruits and flowers (mango & frangipani), balsamic myrrh and smoky incense, creating a full-bodied perfume that parallels Duchaufour's exotic masterpiece Timbuktu in many ways. Finally, you can treat this as an interesting exotic oud-fragrance as this is one of the most prominent notes here but Hue is so much more than that. One of the best and most unusual Zworykina's fragrances.

Huế is the Vietnamese city where my maternal grandmother is from. In corresponding with Anna, who suggested I try it as a replacement for her discontinued No 1 perfume for Switch Perfumes, she expressed that she had spent a lot of time there for inspiration; probably more than I’ve ever spent there. Huế is herbal, incensey, resinous, mossy, dense, and dark. This is what I would imagine Jason Momoa as Aquaman would wear. (No, I haven’t seen the movie yet.) Wherever you are, this definitely takes you on a journey elsewhere, to some place darker, earthier, calmer.

I love this, it transports me back to the neighboring Angkor. The salty, seaweed-y start, the mustiness, the warm woods in the tail are all about hidden musty temples in the lush jungle.

It's from her "gothic" collection, but to be fair i don't think it smells dark, like something named "A City Of Dead Kings" might. Gives an impression of a warm golden hour somewhere in an asian town, when the stone walls start giving back the accumulated warmth. It's complex and well-blended, and mango gives a sweet friendly undertone and prevents the perfume from being too dry. Sits close to the skin, and didn't last longer than an hour. Honestly, i'd love to have it in a EDP with a spray, but such option is not available.

This perfume fully captures the complexity of Anna's craftsmanship. I especially enjoy that this perfume is not meant to have mass appeal, rather it is rich in meaning. The movement of notes from sweet, sour, bitter; floral, herbal, woody, is really captivating. It is not really a perfume to "wear", it is more a perfume to have a dialogue with.