Au Dela

Thi is so beautiful, and so very comforting, yet just a little bit spicy, and I want to be the person that this perfume represents. She's genteel without a trace of snobbery. She is earthy yet airy, comforting and warm without being cloying. She is sexy and she knows it, but it's her knowledge. There's no need to advertise it. This is who I imagine myself to be in my daydreams.

This is a classic very sharp chypre. It smells like it was made in the 1970's. Sharp coriander and neroli in the beginning for the opening. Very green, dry and sharp. Pointed, gets your attention. It continues in the heart to remain green, sharp and bitter. The dry down is softer, orange blossom resting on an oakmoss and resin pillow. Very classic. I could see people who like Chanel no 19 or Patou's 1000 appreciating this very green classic floral fragrance. Beautifully done. I would love to try his Lilac fragrance but samples are hard to get. This reminded me a bit of Norell but that is much more animalic. This smells much cleaner. A cleaner version of mother nature. Women who wear this are to reckonned with.

I got a sample of Au Dela in the portfolio set that Bruno Fazzolari sells. I highly recommend getting the sample portfolio so you can try all of his fragrances. This has a very nice floral, dry powder kind of smell. I think of a classy older woman when I smell it. It is not for me, but does smell nice.

A scent your beautiful chain-smoking aunt would have lingering on her silk kimono. Don't know why I'm getting old cigarettes from this -- FZOTIC might just not be the house for me/my skin chemistry I fear. Despite that, I'd love to get to know the lady this makes me think of.

Au Delà by perfumer and artist Bruno Fazzolari is something very special. I first smelled it along with the other three perfumes of his initial launch into the perfume world last March at San Francisco Artisan Fragrance Salon. You can read about that event here. Au Delà immediately struck me as a fabulous perfume that recalled the great days of the house of Dior in the early 50’s. It is so reminiscent of such beauties as the old original Miss Dior. Not the silly girl she has become today in her reformulations but the beautiful confident woman she was at the dawn of post war glamour. I have to give credit to Hilary Randal who was the one to pinpoint for me what I was smelling in that bottle of Au Delà that day back in March. Bruno has in his collection all of which was released in 2013, Lampblack, Jimmy, Five, Monserrat, and Au Delà. Each are exquisite and should be explored by any and every perfume lover, but for me Au Delà is the masterpiece of the line. It is the goddess in a bottle, the essence of French chic created by and artist who grew up in both in France and the United States. This perfume was inspired by one of the major French composers of the 20th Century, Olivier Massiaen. And in this inspiration there is music, glorious music. To equate this fragrance to the inspiration just listen to L’Ascension by Massiaen and you have the tones and notes of this perfume. It opens with a simple clear, glowing note of coriander. This note is almost immediately obliterated by an unfolding song from a beautiful jasmine that is wreathed with Neroli and orange blossoms. This plays its melody with increasing sensuality as it is aroused by the arrival of the base notes of Amber, Oakmoss and something magical created by Bruno known as Immanence. Immanence is a fantasy note that is as ephemeral as a dream and as real as fairy dust. It is the God note that encompasses everything and exists in all creation. It is there in the base of the perfume and gives it wings, shimmering wings on which to fly. This Chypre is indolic, intoxicating and inspiring. It loves to live on the skin of both men and women and in so doing finds the essence of male or female sensuality in the meeting of perfume to flesh. Since its release Au Delia has won both the Gold Medal for Top Artisan Perfumer at the International Artisan Fragrance Awards and the Gold Medal at the San Francisco Artisan Fragrance Salon. I found this award winning perfume to be sublime with a respectable sillage and good longevity. You can find it at Bruno’s Webpage and at Tigerlily in San Francisco. Tigerlily is the first brick and mortar story to carry Bruno Fazzolari Editions. For a debut perfumer it is exceptional and I look forward to watching Bruno Fazzolari’s journey as an up an coming perfumer. Au Delà Five Gold Stars ***** (FOR THE STORY BEHIND MY REVIEW CHECK OUT MY BLOG, SCENTS MEMORY)

A highly authentic classic chypre with all the trimmings, Au Delà is a technically stunning perfume. A white floral bouquet of neroli and orange flower forms the introduction with a delicately indolic chord played through a clandestine jasmine. The opening is rendered green and bitter from a sprinkle of coriander, but softens into a supine oriental, balancing the bitter with the brittle effortlessly. An elusive soapiness is met with a faint powder, and the use of crisp herbal notes over an amber base breaks the seal of the standard hermetic oriental form, allowing for an element of space that keeps the scent from stifling paths. It's very much a 1930s-style perfume that's faithfully reimagined. Some of the more contemporary takes on these classic forms tend to add their own spin with varying levels of success. Le Labo’s largely overlooked Belle du Soir, Bogue Profumo’s criminally overlooked Eau d’E, and Sonoma Scent Studio’s much-loved Nostalgie, have all take vintage aesthetics and done a top-shelf job of adding their own signature. Au Delà, on the other hand, keeps the classics more in-focus by harmonizing with scents such as Miss Dior and Sous le Vent. As Au Delà quiets down, the herbal opening converges with the mossy amber for an “ade”-esque effect and the scent turns quite intimate, whispering through the final stages. It’s clear here that the reference is one of respect rather than opportunism. Fazzolari’s artistic tie-in, this time, can be found in French composer Olivier Messiaen and his Demeurer dans l’Amour from Éclairs sur L’Au Delà. Aurally, the piece is both melancholic and cinematic—the kind of thing I’d imagine would work well in one of Guy Maddin’s films from the late ‘80s. While the fragrance doesn’t reflect the jarring shifts of the music, the indolic texture conveys an aloof purr of interest that responds to Messiaen’s strange rhythmic pushes. It might be said that the scent feels less intricate than the music, but perhaps it’d be more accurate to say that the intricacy complicates the appreciation of the scent. However, inspiration doesn’t necessitate harmonic coordination, and so imposing a connection between the relative smoothness of the notes with the less-than-smooth notes of the score seems discordant and vulgar. Aesthetically, Au Delà is a departure from the jaw-dropping Lampblack (although Lampblack has a classical works cited page of its own), but it’s just as striking and impressive a fragrance. If the feel of vintage French perfumery is your thing, and you’re curious to see how the new artisans are working with these forms, then Au Delà deserves a spot on your radar. Neither anachronistic nor avant-garde, Au Delà sits confidently outside of time.

Nothing is better than vintage Miss Dior, in my opinion. When I wear it, I adore each phase of it--the snappy galbanum opening, the jasmine and gardenia at its heart, the incredibly complex, warmly musky and mossy base wreathed with subtle patchouli. I never thought I would say this, but I have sampled a modern perfume that reminds me of vintage Miss Dior, and--unsurprisingly--it comes from an independent perfumer. Some time ago, I ordered Bruno Fazzolari's wonderful sample set from his website. It came with a lovely handwritten note from Mr. Fazzolari (try topping THAT, Mr. Ellena!). I spritzed a little Au Delà on myself but I didn't have the chance to spend much time with it. Later, I tested it more thoroughly, and Au Delà completely won me over. The coriander is definitely present at the opening: herbal, a little sharp, and just a little bit funky. (Coriander is a great vegan animalic note that I enjoy: some noses do not, of course). I find that Au Delà contains exceptionally beautiful floral notes--gorgeous jasmine and neroli--that all sing out clearly, along with a rich base that is thankfully NOT the by now all-too familar, all-purpose incensey woody ambroxan stuff. Instead, Au Delà offers beautiful patchouli, a little labdanum, and--can it really be?--authentic oakmoss. At this stage, Au Dela strongly evokes the beauty of vintage Miss Dior for me, while remaining its own distinct creation. TL; DR --If you like vintage Miss Dior, get a sniff or two of Au Delà. Or vice versa...

VERY sour greens with an extreme dozes of resin, coriander, and neroli. White sharp floral and i believe it contains black peppers. It reminds me allot of "Intuition" for women by Estee Lauder somehow! with that powerful sour (almost like urine) note. SHARP ShARp SHarP chypre. I believe this is a hit for late 80s powerhouse fragrance lovers, sharp, steady, & knows it's way. Edit (10 minutes later) this turns quite soapy as a hand soap (mostly "Imperial Leather" soap) with allot of foam, clean, and bobbles. It starts like a late 80s powerhouse chypre fragrances and ends like a mid 90s clean bubbly fragrance. hmm... MeH! Edit (29th July 2017) It wasn't as sharp as i first sampled it! it is quite sour, and bitter yes, greeny = very, and very grassy. Edit (8th Aug 2017) It is soapy grapefruitti and musky. The musk in here is the clean musk, and it has that soapy effect that makes it sour clean.

My second wearing of this has sold me!! It's all here. A moss sets a stage for a beautiful Indolic Jasmine. A stunning Orange blossoms and rises almost 3 dimensional through the centre. Totally Feminine, Classically driven perfume. I've grown accustomed to a plethora of White Florals on the shelf, boring. Few are able to attain this level of beauty excepting Vintage. Can't wear it myself as I am Masculine. A small bottle will be in my wife's wardrobe.

I'm incredibly thankful for all of Bruno Fazzolari's line, as a fellow synesthete. Au Dela is a wet and woolen yellow to me. It reminds me of a softer, less toothy Chanel No5. I'm in love.