Meraki

No longer available unless you want a sample, at least not on the Fort & Manle website. Full bottles are sold out. Guess that’s the way with limited releases. Meraki was a great fragrance from one of my favourite houses. It’s a sweet-floral-woody scent, leaning heavily on the floral. The opening is sweet and fruity, but quickly moves to the floral end of the spectrum. Jasmine and Osmanthus complement the fruit really well, with a musk and woody hint that comes to the fore in the dry down. Patchouli and cedar start to dominate as it settles, but the musk and floral notes don’t disappear. Meraki is a stunning example of a fruity floral Middle Eastern inspired fragrance and Rasei Fort is almost without peer in developing this style from the other side of the world. Long may he continue to surprise and excite.

Meraki is the latest release from Fort & Manle, released in 2019 exclusively to Luckyscent in the US, like the rest of the Fort & Manle line as well as Rasei Fort’s self-named line. It’s an elegant woody/floral, unisex albeit feminine-leaning, with a prominent heart of jasmine and osmanthus accented by a fruity opening of apricot/peach that lingers for some time into the musky/woody drown with cedar, patchouli, and, of course, musk. There’s also a vaguely animalic bit in the background but it’s subtle, perhaps a mix of the musk and ambergris. It has a nice modern floral feel to it while also feeling a nod to classic, while still leaning modern, overall. Unisex, appealing, elegant, I quite like it, and it seems to perform well. It’s not so much my personal style but it’s easy to appreciate when a floral like this is well put together, and I’d certainly encourage others, especially fans of the house, to check it out. Priced at $300 for the standard (albeit gorgeous) 50ml bottle size, Meraki is pricier than its predecessors, though a limited edition. 7 out of 10

A very interesting if not completely successful attempt to recreate one of the most ill fated perfume releases in modern history - Shiseido’s Nombre Noir created by Serge Lutens. This is a floral aldehyde and Rasei Fort puts his best foot forward trying to recreate this problematic scent. The scent opens with a mix of aldehydes, apricot, peach, bergamot and honey. The heart is firmly floral with jasmine, rose and osmanthus. The perfume settles on a powdery bed of synthetic musk, patchouli, sandalwood, cedar and slight amber. The feminine leaning scent has moderate to strong projection and good longevity. Somehow the syrupy sweet opening mixed with the powdery base and heavy floral center feels a bit too much and could make a few people with light tolerance a bit queasy. But full marks for a gallant effort and great presentation as usual. Enjoy!

If the perfumer or the brand owner insists this is really similar to Nombre Noire by Shiseido, That is really insulting even I'm not fond of NN. If I were the head of Shiseido, I would sue this brand. This is a hideous cheapy syrupy smell like a car air refresher in a can and unbalanced lactone used that makes me nauseous.

5th This one is so confusing to my nose-the notes. The fruitiness(peach, apricot, osomanthus-cannot smell this) starts off beautiful. It does have a vintage feeling along the lines of Rochas Femme(without leather) and Mitsouko(without power-moss). There is a sour/fruity acrid smell here after the top notes wear off which I get from other older/vintage perfume blends also-aldehydes?, fruity notes? I do not like this smell and it becomes a muddle of notes that I do not enjoy after the opening. There definitely is patchouli in this, but for some reason it smells a little mossy, faintly medicinal to me. I smell no honey; perhaps it’s well blended with the fruit (I first thought there might be mango, which I like a lot in scents). All in all, not a bad scent, if you like this kind of “vintage feel” composition. There are better true "vintage" scents out there. That strange acrid smell is what I find a turnoff. 7/10