Sirenide

I bought Sirenide on impulse. To be honest, a rare blind purchase for me, especially since I usually avoid marine-themed fragrances. But intuition called and... I followed. I expected a modern reinterpretation of the aquatic florals of the early 2000s, something reminiscent of older Kenzo or Issey Miyake creations: that laconic melancholy of lotus, still air, inner peace. What I received was entirely different and so much more. It was love at first breath, the kind of connection with a scent that makes you immediately know: this is mine. The perfume opens with a strong almond note. It is sweet and welcoming at first, but quickly turns bitter, perhaps mixing with anise, which literally evokes associations with cyanide. Imagine cracking a cherry pit between your teeth, that addictive yet threatening aroma (given the darkened and romanticised image of cyanide in culture). Next comes the heart: water flowers, tender and wet, with a subtle white-floral character. I catch nuances of orange blossom in this accord, but I can easily believe a water lily might smell like that. Fragile and alive floral scent. And then the floral heart meets the breath of the sea... and oh, I do love the sea here! It is not the ozonic kind found in typical marine perfumes, but the smell of a northern coast with melting snow, damp air and just a slight drop of salt. The base, for me, is a soft leather accord blended with something synthetic yet intriguing. I suppose this is what was meant to be plastic, but I sense the smell of latex, and it contrasts (yes, beautifully!) with the organic and fluid heart. Purity against artifice, tenderness opposed to danger, this is what Sirenide’s beauty is for me. Some perfumes comfort you, wrapping you in blissful warmth. Sirenide does the opposite. It stirs the soul, especially when you are living through a time of contradictory emotions. Soul scent. Mine.

Received this as a 2 ml freebie along with a hand-written note from its maker, after ordering the Revenant discovery set. The opening is bilateral, bitter almonds and anise, an almost medical smell that somehow makes me think of absinthe. The notes remain the same throughout the scent's evolution, only dying down in intensity to reveal some complexity and sophistication from the mid notes which I could not guess for the life of me. Luckily, the anise dissipates rather quickly and lets the scent normalize and become livable with. It reaches its final form 4 hours later and stays like that for over 36 hours. This is the strongest longest lasting scent that I have ever tried, with the exception of Fleur de Peau from Diptique. It will not vanish, it will not die in intensity and after 24 hours the scent changes character and is softer, warmer and almost feminine. For a woman's fragrance you must be highly disagreeable to wear this or find it wearable. This offends to some extent and even at its most soft and feminine form it's still cold odd bitter and somehow repelling, despite not being a bad smell whatsoever. Hard to describe the targeted demographic. This is a scent that discourages sane men to pursue you and puts distance between you and other people in general. Very artistic good composition aimed at nobody, which is probably why it's a master piece. Fits on the likes of Medusa from Little Siren, or Mia Khalifa. Using it as a car fragrance makes much more sense than as a perfume.

It's weird but cool. Refreshing but bitter. This is absolutely my bag, but I totally understand that this isn't for everyone. It's an almond scented nail polish. As a novice perfumer myself, this is really interesting and quite impressive. It smells like that liquid soap that smells like almond/cherry with an added algae and watermelon. This is for the leather jacket, heel bitten jeans and cowboy boot wearers that also happen to love Steely Dan. It's very expressive and I urge you to give this a try on skin and judge it AFTER at least 10 minutes. I guarantee half of the negative reviews are based off the first few seconds of this perfume. Yes, it's very strong and solvent-y straight away, but if you just give it a proper wear test you'll see that it's beautiful. Also, I wouldn't recommend spraying this on the front of your neck because I could see how it would then become nauseating. It's such an awesome perfume and I feel sorry for anyone that doesn't like it because I don't know what I'd do without it. Today's SOTD and I'm loving it. Really strong performance overall if you care about that. At £2.50/ml I would give this an 8.5/10. Not the greatest value for money but still beautiful and such a fun wear. You definitely won't be smelling like anyone else on the street.

The opening is wow-inducing for sure - the peculiar combination of metallic almond, dense aquatic florals and plastic is like nothing I've smelled before. It's unsettling and uncomfortable, yet hypnotizing. The almonds start to dissipate during the drydown and that's when the fragrance start to become monothematic and loses its spark. The whole scaffold of the fragrance is build around huge overdose of Nympheal - the water lily molecule with watermelon undertones that is one of the longer lasting muguet materials. It's present from start to finish, and that's almost all I can smell in later hours. Makes the deep drydown smell similar to the deep drydown of LV Meteore. I wish it was tad bit more complex during that stage, but I still find it unique and different. As usual, fragrantica notes are incomplete. Info from Beaufort: Top Notes: Blue flag iris, water hawthorn, bitter almond & aniseed Heart Notes: Water lily & pink lotus Base Notes: Ambergris, cedar atlas, woodruff & pinseal Perfumer: Euan McCall

My favourite BeauFort London fragrance and something for the beach goths, this smells—to me—like a wedding by the sea, there's notes in here I can't put my finger on, something poetic, the drydown is so so different to the opening (which lasts an hour on my skin) yet both are precious and delicate. A romantic juice. I really wanted to love BeauFort, but I find they don't last or project, are slightly derivative maybe, but then I tried Sirenide. Game changer for me. I don't know why, but I think of Call Me By Your Name, it smells like the colour pallet. Sounds dumb. I d'know, but what I do know is that I love this perfume and I would commit to 100ml if it was available. Signature worthy for me, wedding worthy if I marry by the sea in summer. Wait, what /will/ I wear on my wedding day!? 10/10