Kurokami

Frankly, this has jumped into contention as one of, if not my favorite scents in my collection, competing waft for waft with Bortnikoff’s Triad, but where Triad zeros in on a contemplative rose de mai/ oud combination, this perfume perfects an entirely new composition of rose for me. Kurokami starts on my skin with clean, juicy, and herbal clementines, grapefruits, and oranges, but quickly opens up into an airy, creamy, rose masterpiece. The Japanese rose absolute and rose otto are more ethereal, visceral, and mysterious than a typical rose, and, to me, smell akin to a cloud of purple and white rose petals, with a distinct lack of pink rose, floating peacefully in the air next to me. As Kurokami dries down, the palisander and sandalwood really start to show their faces. Throughout the day, I have been greeted with wafts of white woods and rose whenever my skin moves through the air, or heats up. I also cannot believe how long this is lasting on my skin. I’m going into hour 6, and Kurokami is humming along perfectly. This is certainly a mentally cleansing and healing perfume. Cheers! PS: This is now available in the US on Luckyscent!!!!! Thanks to rbalkris for introducing me to this house!

Elegance in a bottle. Opens with juicy mandarin orange, and fresh rose similar to Rose L’Orange by April Aromatics. The rose here though has more presence than in AA, and fresher too almost green. The rose in AA smells more like potpourri whereas this smells like freshly picked rose petals you crushed in your fingers and sniff the oily residue. It is classy and much more natural. Then, you start to smell the palisander which is deeply resinous and rich, almost acting like oud, very strong smelling varnished wood. The jasmine sweetens it and bridges the bright fresh opening with the very heavy woody base notes. Spikenard adds a minty herbaceous touch lightly here and there. The jasmine fruity molecules dissolve into languid, indoles. The longevity is excellent, and the projection is elegant - just a haze above skin level. Perfection. It’s rare to actually sniff the pyramid notes and experience them in a flowing, graceful progression. Highly recommend trying if you like the scent of fresh wild rose oil, enjoy indolic jasmine, and deep woods.

Di Ser Kurokami (unknown release date) - Rose Jasmine - @diser.essentia ‘s Shinohara-san’s perfumes is one my best kept secrets. Would love them to get more recognition. An all-natural, farm to bottle perfume. But I can smell the work that the perfumer placed by probably refining the rose-jasmine balance hundreds of times. This starts with a juicy citrus of Clementines, Orange and Grapefruit. The rose & spikenard comes out quickly that lends to a rosey-herbal-camphor accord that I have never smelled before. The freshness of the rose meshes with a slightly indolic Jasmine and further rounded by Sandalwood and Rosewood.

After the citrus blast, it reminds me a lot of Opulence, a favorite from an U.S. based independent natural perfumer JoAnne Bassett; however, after side by side comparison, there are noticeable differences—This is brighter, sweeter, and more tangy while Opulence is more "mid-bottom heavy" with an almost soapy orange blossom & ambergris.

Soft, natural, and very elegant. The rose and citrus are lush without being overbearingly sweet, and there's something smooth and maybe even creamy going on in the background, I'm guessing from the jasmine and sandalwood? Something about this overall makes it smell sleek and glossy, maybe even "oily" but in good way