Song of Songs

Since reading about this parfum, based on the ancient scents of the Bible, I have not been able to put it out of my mind. Today, I received my sample and my imagination did not even begin to do it justice. This is an extraordinary blend of spices, like nothing else I have ever smelt. Woody, ashy, spicy on a sweetish base, it is exotic and warm and magical. Divinely inspired. Despite the preponderance of heavy notes this seems to lift its clarion voice to the sky. This heavenly elixir smells equally divine on my fiance, somewhat sweeter than on my skin even. Due to the percentage of all natural oils and essences used here, this parfum has amazing strength and projection so a couple of drops goes a long way. We are adopting a bottle soon to use together for adventures worthy of Solomon's Song... I unhesitatingly recommend this for everyone to try.

Taking on the Song of Songs in a perfume project is ambitious, to say the least. However, Ayala Moriel has produced a competent interpretation, creating a smoky, dark, sensuous blend that smells similar to all of her other perfumes but is one of the stronger, deeper and non-foody ones. It’s smoky and leathery, with a mix of raw labdanum resin and myrrh, sweetened with a hint of rose absolute. The list of notes on the AM website reads like a standard Arabian perfume - oud, saffron, rose, and spkenard, but it doesn’t smell anything like an Arabian perfume. It just smells like an Ayala Moriel creation. It’s one of my favorites from this perfumer due to its non-gourmand nature and its relative assertiveness. Longevity isn’t bad for this genre, about 3-4 hours on skin.

Song of Songs by Ayala Moriel is described as a perfume incorporating resins and botanic materials mentioned in the Old Testament book, Song of Solomon. It opens with a smoothly smoky helping of both frankincense (olibanum) and myrrh accompanied by a slightly sweet, vegetal labdanum. Saffron plays a soft leathery note and rose brings a very slight floral sweetness. Unfortunately, it is not quite sweetly balanced enough for me to enjoy without reservation. I usually find frankincense and myrrh to progress on to fragrant softness, however in this case, these two resins stay strongly at the primary edge of the composition. More rose would have pushed the whole into a more common rose/resin/oud perfume. But who needs another rose/oud unless it is spectacular? Perhaps the addition of another sweet floral could have made it better. But that's the pervue of the perfumer, not the reviewer or the user. It simply seems incomplete to me especially since, given the scent's name, my hopeful anticipation had been so keen for a complex, rich, unique juice.

"Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense. All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." -Song of Songs, 4:6-7 Ayala's aromatic interpretation opens well enough, mainly with a scratchy, dry blast of saffron which I enjoy much more than I did in Safran Troublant. As the saffron fades away, myrrh and frankincense take over, and this is when the magic slips into teenage silliness for me. if you've tried Regina Harris's take on Frankincense and Myrrh you'll know this duo can be a deep, archetypical treausre. Or, it can be a mess. To get this right the quality of ingredients has to be stellar, and here I can't say that it is. It just gets too sweet; the type of sweetness that isn't enjoyable. Fortunately the unenjoyment lasts about an hour, typical for this line, which wears like an aromatherapy mixture and not as a perfume. All in all a shame, because the phrase 'Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires' could have conceived something better.