Ottoman Rose

For a company known for bath products, this fragrance is seriously expensive IMO. My bottle cost more than US$200! I think it is up there with Chanel price wise, but oh I do love this leathery rose fragrance for winter. It's an oily EDP that leaves a glossy sheen on your skin for a bit after application. The oilier, the better I say! I have a few tonka bean bombs on my perfume shelf. Thankfully the tonka bean is not prominent in this fragrance. It's a smoky, leathery, rosy with lovely berry juice- indeed a cozy fragrance and it lasts well on my skin. It won't be to everyone's taste but if you like winter Orientals and enjoy Lanvin Arpege, Opium and other similar heavier winter fragrances, you may just love this one too. It does not resemble Arpege or Opium but it's along the same wintery vein. It's rather luxurious! The flacon is pretty too.

Such a beautiful and unusual fragrance. Elegant, grown up, and mysterious. Wish they still made it!

I thought I'd reviewed/warned people off this stuff before, but I guess not. I dropped what I remembered to be at least $150 at full retail on this bottle in 2013, right after it had first come out. Crabtree & Evelyn was already on its downhill slide and had closed up stores all over my area, so it was a blind buy. But of course I love rose scents and Middle Eastern scents and loved most Crabtree scents in the prior 40 years (literally 40 years), especially their rosy Evelyn scent, so I thought Ottoman Rose would be wonderful. So I was horribly disappointed when it was just ghastly. The survivors of the Ottoman Empire would have none of this. It did not smell like even a white UK person's idea of a Middle Eastern scent, and was not at all rosy. It was a mish mash of fruity goop, not roses or patchouli and I'm fairly certain I scrubbed it off. I thrust it into a dark part of a dresser drawer. I didn't even want to give it to someone. And I'm still disappointed. Every 5 years or so since 2013 I try it again. Today it has been overtaken by the blackberry. Yes, I know blackberry is listed as a top note, but 12 years later it's screaming now. It's only slightly better than it was in 2013, only because I didn't scrub it off. I also associate it with the complete fall of Crabtree & Evelyn. They made some great stuff before about 2005, and I know there was a lot of competition worldwide for fragrances, and working people (Crabree had stores in downtown malls where I live) were telecommuting a lot, so I suppose there were fewer buyers. Crabtree apparently thought these 4 scents, Ottoman Rose, Kashmir Musk, Persian Tea, and Assam something or other...oh Oud would save them and apparently they did not, because within 6 months or so these four scents weren't even on eBay. I really miss Crabtree stuff. They had wonderful years. If you only know them for Ottoman Rose, I feel so sorry.

It's too fruity and sharp, I'd like if without the blackberry

The new panty dropper is provided by..."wait for it...wait for it"....Crabtree & Evelyn?!!! Isn't this the same company that specializes in all things Bath and Body Work-Esque? Why, yes it is..Welcome to Crabtree's venture into the world of niche. The first thing that grabbed my attention obviously were the avalanche of notes. I have to be honest, with the bevy of notes; I expected to smell otherworldly. My expectations were met with surprise, not chagrin. All 22 notes are present. Miraculous. For those seeking Hiroshima like projection, be forewarned that ottoman's eminence is like a breath. The first initial spray, is everything you would expect from an oriental handbook with nutmeg leading the way. No lie, every note is present. The entire perfume pyramid on your skin simultaneously. My favorite note through this process were probably the blackberries. The fruit in ottoman as a whole gushed vivaciously to the point where you would have to smell it to believe it. The oriental DNA from the top is present throughout with the leather becoming more pronounced as time goes by. In closing, the army of ingredients gives the impression of a monster fragrance but i can assure you that Ottoman Rose is more friendly than it is monster. A good offering.