Sonnet 18

A lovely rich, golden yellow and green smell, a warm summer in a bottle ready to bloom on your skin. I smell soft, fresh and sweet hay like linden blossoms and some slightly waxy, rich mimosa, their pollen sticking to pale but richly flavoured, sticky sap like honey, with gentle animalic undertones. There is some fine edible tonka in here too. Deeply relaxing and soothing, mood enhancing, and sensual, Linden is thought to be an aphrodisiac. A great perfume for summertime love. Annette’s perfumes seem to have classic forms but with a particular personal signature; each of them has its own ‘feel’ and I’m struck by just how much texture she manages to conjure - I love this about them. To my delight, there is a gorgeous beeswax in the base of many of them and the quality of the natural materials is a joy for any perfume lover to get their nose around - If you like them, you’re going to really like them. For me they are masterful, rounded, thorough and beautiful compositions with no uncomfortable edges to be found anywhere. Sonnet 18 is yet another Annette Neuffer perfume for my want list. And for those of us who like a bit of poetry... Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Ohhhhhh. Purest love: my finest words couldn't even describe, much less compete with, its natural beauty. A definitive summer meadow, modulating perfectly through cut-grass greenness to heady floral sweetness to an earthy, loamy comfort layer beneath. A real standout among Annette Neuffer's stunning line because it plays so strongly to her own strengths: organic, botanical classic notes, nothing freaky, but rich and strong, balanced and harmonised with each other to add up to something knock-you-for-six GORGEOUS. Zesty zing up top (conjuring brilliant memories of Grossmith Hasu no Hana) but so, so, so much more too. It somehow smells calm and kind, clement, welcoming - a sort of serene, late-summer evening hour, not sweltering heat of midday, but dusk when the volatile oils waft around on a cooler breeze. (Reminded me in this phase of Dusita's beautifully poised Erawan.) While it smells of midsummer it could be worn with true joy any day of any year in any lifetime. To keep my own syllable count down: no more praise I can add, it gets excessive. Polyanthes' review nails it, and quotes the first verse which this beautiful work of perfume art brought to my mind as well. Sonnet 18 is good enough to make anyone bust out the love poetry. Just wonderful.

Well, just emptied a sample of This One, and it's perfect for the Winter to. Smooth....