Forbidden Flower

The time has come for me to write my review after a good few full wears. The initial reaction was admittedly one of shock but also excitement. I had no idea what to expect. Initially I had sprayed it on strip and I quickly realized that what they say is true, Russian Adam's work is best experienced on skin. Please don't use a strip to judge his work, they lie! On strip, all I got was grapefruit and sharp indolic jasmine. No subtleties, no evolution, nothing. On skin, you get that zesty citrusy opening with that indolic jasmine coming in roaring right behind it. It's a very deep jasmine, at first seeming sharp, I believe due to the citrus but once the citrus calms down, the jasmine gets very rich and almost sweet. Benzoin is also a big part of the main aroma to my nose, that typical powdery ("baby powder") effect it brings. Usually I'm not that big on it but here it's quite well blended and very pleasant. It also makes Forbidden Flower not all that offensive to most people, since baby powder rarely offends anyone, truth be told. About half an hour in, the citrus is all but gone and you get into that teasingly skunky note (that skunk oil/hemp flower). It's *very* slight however, just there to poke you and tease you, letting you know it's there before another half hour later, the wood comes in, grounding things a bit and giving you a break from that airy, heady jasmine. I say heady but to me it never gets "pissy" at all like some florals will do to my nose (especially ylang and gardenia). Forbidden Flower is a very airy perfume in general, very rooted in vintage inspirations. In fact, a colleague at work into vintage French perfumes was very interested in knowing what it was and she felt it was reminding her of vintage Chanel and other classic French perfumes. So yes, in the late drydown, the wood and patchouli peek in, grounding things and letting the perfume stick closer to skin. I have been catching whiffs of it all day and it gets very pleasant a few hours in. I had sprayed it in the air in my office and it is incredibly pleasant in the air as well. All in all, a very "safe" perfume by Areej le Doré's standards. Very wearable but also very unique, you won't smell like anyone else with this. Obviously I wouldn't wear this in the heat, it'd be way overwhelming but this Spring and when Fall comes, it'll be a mainstay, for sure. A perfect gateway to get into the brand, in my opinion. It's only gotten me more curious and trying so hard not to bite and get the others that are still available before they sell out. Russian Adam's work is well regarded for a reason. Beautiful, mysterious, unconventional and even a little irreverential and whimsical. That's Forbidden Flower. A word about price: considering how expensive niche perfumery can get and how much the prices of designer fragrances have been jacked up, at 250USD this is absolutely great value.

I'm not expert in Cannabis perfumes, but I do have samples of Fragrance du Bois Cannabis Blue and Cannabis Intense, the latter off which YouTuber 'The Perfume Guy' rated as one of the top Cannabis scents out there in a recent video. I can say without exaggeration that Forbidden Flower is far more complex, deep, zingy, and stunning than either. It opens with a juicy grapefruit that seems almost plump it's so vivid, alongside hemp flower and something else it is hard to define, perhaps the faint whiff of skunk oil. But the overall impression is one of freshness and crispness with a leaning towards the exotic. Soon the jasmine comes in to give the perfume body and make it fly, but it is a light jasmine and not even the slightest bit chewy. At this stage the grapefruit has faded but not the hemp, and other citrus notes like lime and coriander in the bass start to show up, along with more exotic and zesty notes of turmeric and ginger. The bass also has coriander, which is somewhat lemony, and this keeps the freshness going while the jasmine and spices continue to dance around the hemp, which never seems to go away. Into the dry down a certain clean linen type of smell becomes apparent, which the reviewer below (sorvaahr) attributed to benzoin. This imparts an element of class and pedigree that persists for hours. The conclusion? This is an absolute banger for warm but not the hottest weather and is so unique as if you are witnessing the birth of a new fragrance DNA. The nice market is so predictable with all its blue fragrances, its Allure and TDH clones, its Creed rip offs (who have to be ripped off because Creed performance is so laughable these days), etc etc, but this gem is something different. It is too bad it is a limited release because I could easily see this hitting the sweet spot between mass appealing and niche, like Xerjoff Nio does, only I like this one more. It feels classic yet smells new, it wears modern, but radiates old money, it's one of the longest lived citruses I've encountered, but brings so much more to the table. A real winner, like the rest of this collection.

How is your "fight or flight" response working? Is it already supercharged, on high alert? Entering into the world of Forbidden Flower is only for perverts, WAPs, and/or bambi-like fawns. This perfume is pure baby wipes, talcum, white florals, bum and all. A bit of lime and the zest of ginger makes this decidedly unisex. Now, if you haven't been properly scared away and have reached thus far, also know that Forbidden Flower is the scent not only of sex—in whatever sexual preference and gender identity one chooses—but of Romantic literature. This citrusy, slightly stuffy ("vintage") and yet ultimately nebular perfume abounds in poetry, providing the powder of inspiration, the celestial haze of freshness, the foreboding afterlife of stink, where vanilla, patchouli, lime, benzoin, and jasmine become the main salves for coating in quickly-aging flowers all of the woes that have befallen you. For me, the entire marijuana influence is a red herring. No, this is not weed. The forbidden flower is something entirely lost to us, maybe once endemic to the Garden of Eden before we all f'ed that up... Areej Le Doré's least liked perfume from his musk collection is the one that pulls the veil from the farce of innocence, which says less about what we see behind the veil and more so about the "incensed" (ha!) position we find ourselves in nowadays, trying to sniff out what smells off in every new social interaction that lingers on indefinitely.

My first impression review for the full set. I may add the full post impressions later, after a week. This is definitely a animalic scent. It is super creamy, literally like you are smelling some kind of soft flowers creamy substance. There is a creamy grapefruit with maybe a slight touch of something that you can claim to be cannabis-like. There is a huge load of creamy animalicness. Granted, out of all kind of animalic notes, Skunk is the only one I never smelled separately. So, no doubt it gives this composition a animalic sword going through that creaminess that crawls out of the soft jasmin Sambac and sandalwood. If there are any resinoids like benzoin, I can't smell it. The vetiver in combination with corriander can give away that solid mature woodiness for the entire cream-structured scent. This kind of animalic doesn't smell anything like civet or musk, not to mention oud. It is some other kind, more leaning towards the indolic feel, although not that much, it is the only resemblence. People who love Adam's work, will love this one. It is unique. And it is super creamy. P.S. Post review ranking of animalicness for the collection from most animalic to least animalic, for you, my animalic-lover perverts: 1. Royal Barn (1 and 2 are interchangeable) 2. Forbidden Flower 3. Cuirtis 4. Creme De La Creme 5. Paradise Soil P.S.2. I hope that Ramsey will get his hands on all these perfumes to do a review.

This may be the most masculine floral that I own. The opening starts with a very realistic grapefruit that lasts throughout the duration of the experience. It is possible that the acidic smell that I think is the grapefruit, is really the acidic smell of the grapefruit early on, leading into the acidic smell of the lime in the base. Either way, I love that it's there. I get the jasmine and potentially the skunk, but the grapefruit/lime masks any indollic smell that's normally a turn off for me. Even with the cedar and Sandalwood in the composition, this fragrance never falls flat. The sharp twang of the tumeric, vetiver, ginger, and lime keeps this fragrance lifted while being a dark, animalic floral at the same time. Beautiful!