Nahema Eau de Parfum

Comparison of an 80s Extrait and the current EdP Jean-Paul Guerlain, one of the greatest perfumers we’ve ever had, was quoted as saying he considered Nahema to be his greatest creation. Naturally for me, I cannot find where I read that, but I distinctly recall it. And, naturally for one of the greatest creations by one of history’s greatest perfumers, people disliked it when it was released and for quite some time after. How aggressively mediocre the tastes of mass consumers are, and likely will always be. Like the most criminally under appreciated art Nahema eventually got the recognition it deserved, enjoying a legendary and coveted status amongst perfume lovers of all stripes. The story is not a happily ever after though, when in 2016 Guerlain announced that they were no longer going to be making the Nahema Extrait. It had become virtually impossible to make to Guerlain's standards due to materials regulations and at a price people would consider paying. I remember that announcement. Vividly. It was an extremely sad moment. However, I was and continue to be grateful to Guerlain for at least acknowledging they can no longer make it rather than hollowing-it-out into something that doesn’t come anywhere close to the Nahema I know and love. Does that make sense to do from a business standpoint, given Nahema’s legendary status? No, probably not. But it is an honorable thing to do; let something persevere as a beautiful memory, rather than distort it into unrecognizability to suit a new reality. Part of me wonders, though, if Guerlain might be being a bit too hard on themselves. Perhaps they are being too much of sticklers to preservation. I say this because the new-ish batch of EdP I own is really damn good. It’s not the extrait - there are differences, which we’ll get into in a second - but it is unmistakably Nahema. That gorgeous and dramatic personality is alive and well. Could they, then, actually still make the extrait and do so quite convincingly even under a massive reformulation? It seems possible, but I can’t answer that question, obviously, so hopefully I can assuage your sadness at the loss in a way that mine was fairly well assuaged. Smelling two different formats side-by-side of a perfume like Nahema is a tricky task. Going nose-blind is quite easy, and its diffusiveness and tenacity makes it difficult to escape in order to reset the nose. A lot of time and a lot of effort this little experiment did take. The openings of both have some notable differences. The extrait is very much rose and powdery aldehydes. The famous Guerlain peach skin accord is present, made a bit juicy by the presence of orange, but it sits in the background to the rose providing beautiful dimension and breadth. The opening of the extrait is a slow burn; it will not let itself be rushed, like the determined but unhurried blooming of a rose. The rose of the EdP is virtually the same as the extrait, but the EdP leans into the fruit aspects a little bit more and the powdery aldehydes have had their volume turned down a notch or two. Application of the EdP includes some alcohol off-gassing that honestly makes any sort of hesperidic component a bit blurry, but once that subsides, and the slightly stronger fruit aspects of the EdP dry down a bit, the extrait and the EdP are almost indistinguishable. As the two march towards the heart section we start to see a divergence. The extrait goes impossibly rich and succulent. Getting darker. Deeper. Black clouds are consuming the domed sky overhead. It’s a storm of roses, a vortex of black and deep red petals. Hand on my heart, I think this is the best rose accord in perfume history. All of the elegance, regality, and ubiquity of rose are present, but its baroque and operatic, thrillingly compelling and dramatic traits are pushed front and center. Part of this black, baroque, and dramatic nature is due to, I believe, some base materials stretching up into the heart a bit out of sync with the rest of the perfume. Earthy, dark, mildly sweet and mildly vanillic tonka and patchouli, and a touch of animalic styrax, give the rose a deep, rumbling, and powerful growl. The tropical lean of ylang-ylang adds exoticism, accenting the drama. The EdP doesn’t go so far in this direction, opting instead to keep some rays of the sun peaking through dark gray rain clouds rather than black vortex clouds. There is a thunderstorm in the EdP as well, but it’s a powerful summer shower, not an apocalypse. Responsible for this are higher doses of green notes and indoles emanating from the brighter jasmine and hyacinth, and a starchy ylang-ylang rather than ripe-banana-exoticism. Different, but very nearly just as gorgeous as the extrait. Then, finally in both, the storms are over and the clouds depart, and we are left with warm and wet air quickly reheating from the sun's rays and staying close and palpable. The sandalwood amber base of both carry virtually the same notes: creamy beige sandalwood, slightly sweet patchouli and some vanilla, and a bit of aromatic vetiver. The key thing to note, which should be obvious and expected, is that the base in the EdP is thinner. The extrait’s final skin scent is rich and dense, but that’s because it has a lot more naturals at much higher concentrations. The modern EdP opts more for synthetics and at lower concentrations. So, though the EdP is thinner, less rich, and less dense, don’t interpret that as “poor.” It isn’t. The final dry down to the skin scent is still very good and still very recognizably Nahema. The extrait though... I mean... ah forget it, I’m going to stop now. I’ve run out words. I just want to keep smelling it. So there you have it, the quick and dirty on Nahema vintage extrait and the new EdP, one of the best rose perfumes ever made. Chase down some of the extrait if you have the time and money, but if you’re not sure about parting with your cash then try the EdP first. If you really like the EdP, you’re going to fall over in ecstasy smelling the extrait. We’re very fortunate to have Nahema still with us in the EdP. She’s changed; the times have changed; somethings stay and somethings go. I will treasure my vintage extrait for as long as I live, but, when I really want this diva’s company yet I’m feeling a bit too apprehensive to reach for some very expensive drops of the extrait, the EdP does well.

Nahema: Original, Extrait, PDT & EDP a Novella! OK: 1) I have Nahema Guerlain EDP on my right wrist. Batch #552020 which indicates that it was made in 2015. 2) I have Nahema, Parfum Extrait on my right AC (that’s the other side of the elbow) from 2016 3) I have REAL OG Nahema Guerlain PDT decanted from a well-kept bottle from 1992ish (1979 blend) 4) I have the Nahema EDP Guerlain (2021 blend "reformulation") on my left wrist. I have also worn all of these separately on different occasions First of all, these all are 100% Nahema. I believe Maison Guerlain endeavors to preserve their original fragrance as far as IFRA will allow. It is still the perfume inspired by the French actress Catherine Deneuve. The whole fantasy ~The myth: Nahema (a word that sounds like an exhale of dark pink heat), means “the daughter of fire”. “The princess came from the tale 1001 Nights by Scheherazade There were 2 sisters, Mahane and Nahema. here’s the synopsis...check it out: “Mahane was gentle, timid and obedient (I guess that was considered a good thing?), Nahema, whose symbol of femininity was the flower, was filled with fire, indomitable and passionate. One day a prince came to court them, but his heart was divided, and he did not know which sister to choose. The fiery Nahema, whose nature was to devour everything, understood her fate and let her gentle sister marry the prince, then departed for a faraway land.”. ~ So, roses, smoke and fire, spice, strength and beauty. Got it? 1) The 2015 Nahema Guerlain is the lightest. At first a there is a tiny smell of Deet! Like burnt styrax. But that quickly fades to cardamom and opiatic nahema roses and Bulgarian roses. The hyacinth pushes forward, and the sweet balsam and vanilla arrive with a touch of honey and powdery vetiver. I can describe it as exotic (I can smell Turkish delight and incense) but quite westernized. Specifically Anglicised. Very English Garden forward, I can smell Earl Grey tea and peonies. Breezy and free, but somehow contained. Rather short to medium longevity 2) Nahema, Parfum Extrait (extract) is sweeter and stronger but less juicy. It’s not mentioned, but I can smell significant smokey patchouli incense in it. The English Garden has been left for the countryside in the South of France. This one comes in 1st with hyacinth, dark honey and summer evening passionflowers, but dries down with opium, patchouli, vanilla, tonka and sandalwood. Very Turkish delight. Sexier than regular Nahema Guerlain, the extrait is gorgeous, hot and doesn’t play around so much. 3) Nahema Guerlain original PDT (1979 version from early 90s). Oddly, I get Deet again. Seriously, bug spray. But, in this case, it lasts over 15 minutes, and it is combined with honey. I am aware that this could be due to the age and less than perfect preservation. Heavy cardamom and patchouli incense and then roses, roses, opium and roses. The hyacinth keeps its place at a medium distance and does not claim the spotlight, aldehydes and Ylang-ylang do that instead. Balsam is less evident, but everything rides on a long-lasting passionfruit. This one lasts for a long time. After hours I washed it off gently with warm water and towelled it off. The scent remained, mostly as a warm passionfruit, aldehyde and talcum powder...the aldehyde and talc smelled like my grandmothers’ old hatboxes, when I was a child. I love this, but it is not so sexy. I would call this mysterious and beautiful, but not super overtly sexy. I would wear this around a potential mother-in-law, if she’s not too conservative of course. 4) Nahema EDP (2021 remix) .... OK, don’t come for me, but I love this! I am surprised at how many people are unhappy with this new 2021 Nahema! It's beautiful. I'm unhappy that it's discontinued moments after it’s release. I got the very last bottle in Harrods... ok, you can come for me for that...that’s fair. Immediately hyacinth and patchouli jump up and open and pull back a curtain of damascones to reveal torrents of pink roses. I think of Bulgarian roses, apricotesc nahema roses and opiatic Blue Moon roses. Just as you are about to swoon, it reveals the indolic yet energetic youthful scent of hyacinth again, this time with ripe passionfruit and peaches. Not the irritating, cloying fake peach bathroom deodorizer. Nay! Real sun warmed ripe peaches weighing down branches in sultry, deep South Georgia. The kind you long to just bite into and let the juice cover your lips and these lips are dripped with honey. The dry-down is the afterglow of all that, towelled off by sandalwood and patchouli and a touch of vetiver talc. This version is, by far, the most unashamedly sexy. I love them all.

I bought a 10-mL decant of Nahema, and I think I started plotting to procure a full bottle maybe 15 minutes after I applied it for the first time. This stuff is pure heaven to my nose--super-powdery, slightly soapy, lipsticky rose and hyacinth notes; a creamy sandalwood base with a bit of patchouli to sharpen up the greens. This is an idealized rose, not a natural rose, but I don't care because my nose contains multitudes. I think the closest basis for comparison that I have is Kenzo Flower, a powdery rose-violet, makeup scent, or maybe a more streamlined, slightly warmer Misia EDT. The peach imparts a bit of a fruity-chypre Mitsouko vibe. I need to know more about this perfume. I'm guessing it must be Jelk and/or Wasser, but no nose is listed here. I plan on using every last drop of my decant--and not before I order a backup. I'd say Nahema is definitely "signature-scent worthy," even though I'm too fickle and flighty (and too worried about going noseblind) to have a regular scent, much less a signature scent. (Keep 'em guessing, that's the René way.) Update: As it dries down, the balsamic and honeyed resinous notes intensify, and I get a great mashup of the Samsara drydown, plus rose and hyacinth. I just love this. I had to shampoo my dog with special medicated shampoo, and now I want to take a shower to get rid of the medicated-wet-Chihuahua accord that is harshing my glorious Nahema buzz. And then once I shower I can put on... MORE NAHEMA. They need to promote this one more. It's truly extraordinary! Oh, and the original scent was by Jean-Paul Guerlain; I think I may have assumed Raymond for some reason. But this is clearly the recent reformulation, and I have never smelled the vintage version--if it's better than this iteration, it must send people into paroxysms of bliss in the wild! Update: It reminds me of rose-scented cold cream at some points, which I'm sure sounds insulting, but I'm thinking of the most magical, delicious, George MacDonald-enchanted-fairy-grandmother cold cream that you could ever imagine. What is it about Guerlain? I just love that house! Update: Still love my Nahema EDP decant so much and have been hinting shamelessly to my husband that a full bottle may be essential to my well-being. I just put a spray from my decant on my wrist and huff it like a desperate addict. This rose is so luscious; it's not so much an abstracted rose as a sublimated rose, a creamy honeyed rose, the Saint Rose at whose feet all the contemporary realistic roses and soapy roses and green roses and oud-kissed roses and candied roses pay humble obeisance. Oh, to get my grubby little mitts on a bottle of the vintage extrait! But for now I think I would be happy with the 75 ml EDP, which is what I have in my decant--just enough to spray with abandon! And if he wanted to get it engraved, well, I'm a good wife who doesn't ask for much, right? Update: My fragrance YouTube influencer of choice gave the good advice to use up your decants first because they will not last indefinitely, and it would be a shame to let anything you love go wasted or unworn, so I am wearing Nahema more often and sometimes just for myself. I find myself increasingly addicted to that intense rose liqueur scent, the way it somehow contains every life stage of the rose, from the tender buds of May to the blowsy jammy blown roses of late summer to the wistful autumnal roses to the dried potpourri roses to the creamy sublimated roses of cold creams and classic floral unguents, along with late peaches and a lipstick/boudoir powder accord. People say that this is an abstract or even Cubist rose, but to my nose it's more of a time-capsule rose, or maybe even a multiverse rose, a rose that contains multitudes, a rose that can't be confined to a single interpretation, a shape-shifting and liminal rose. You know how you sometimes smell a rose that is so intoxicating that you wish you could consume it, let it possess you from the inside? That is Nahema to me. Update: My husband gave me a nice big bottle for Christmas, and he even had it engraved. I love how it lingers on fabric particularly. I think it's tied with Samsara as my current favorite fragrance.

A sweet and thorny rose....the kind that bleeds red and makes you bleed if you cross her the wrong way. Guerlains are usually blind buys for me as I don’t have access to them where I live. I bought Nahema in search of “The Rose” fragrance of my dreams. Well....Nahema surely is a dream! The 2021 bottle sprays a fine delicate mist over my arm and I immediately smell damp fresh soil. It’s early morning and the garden is misty: the warm breath of the earth hanging in the air. I reach out to grab hold of it, but it’s intangible. Only ethereal...I can smell the roses before I see them. Their strong emerald stems secure in the earth like strong towers. Their ruby petals aglow with an aura of softness and tender beauty that I almost have to look away. Perfectly formed, they cocoon inside each other like liquid red silk. I can see fuzz on each one if I look closely...honeyed rubies glittering in the morning light. Like a forbidden fruit, the fleshly aroma emanating from each moist petal is haunting. I want to touch it, but the tips of her thorns reach out to me in turn: needles honed by angels to guard the rose in her short life. I inhale and take in her fragrance. A rose is a rose. Nahema is a beautiful gothic rose: the kind picked by princes to give to their sleeping beauties. I spray this perfume on and it smells like the very essence of the life of a rose from start to finish. Green and strong she rises up into the sky before her bud opens and she stretches out her tender soft petals. Little bee feet dance on her outstretched arms leaving their little footprints in her pillowy red palms. She takes one last look at the sky before letting her petals fall like heavy tears onto the damp earth below. She takes one last breath before exhaling a waft of pure beauty into the air....Nahema she says... Anyway...yeah. That’s basically it. Green fruity fleshy red roses and an earthy ambience. Moderate sillage and superb longevity (8-12 hours) on my skin. Once the peachy top notes evaporate she stays pretty rosy until fading out like a rose usually does.

I'm sampling 2021 Nahema now. I believe there's more to this fragrance than is listed on the pyramid here. I definitely smell vetiver and aldehydes, there's a lot of juicy green stem and a spicy eugenol/clove, too. The rose isn't what I smell first, though. Immediately on spraying, it's a big cloud of powdery peach, and I can't help but think of Diamonds and Rubies. The rose is there, but for me, Nahema is definitely no soliflore. I like it very much! My only complaint is the longevity. After 2 hours I can't smell much, which is disappointing to me for a fragrance that costs over $100. Update: A spicy rose is much more prominent after my bottle sat around a couple weeks (I always wonder if it's the "resting" or if 1st impressions can just be really different than subsequent sniffing). Many of my Guerlains seem to behave that way--you need to give them time and keep revisiting to appreciate all they offer. While I still have complaints about longevity, the opening is much more exciting and lush. I feel now that my money definitely isn't wasted. This is a gorgeous perfume, she just demands reapplication! Final (?) thoughts: a GORGEOUS spicy powdery rose, and longevity and sillage are actually borderline NUCLEAR. This actually bothers me if I overspray, and I can usually BATHE in "beast mode" scents without a problem! Any rose lover and/or Guerlain appreciator will enjoy this, I'm nearly certain of that. I have since obtained a vintage Parfum mini, and it's more rich and complex, but the modern juice represents Nahema 100% faithfully. Definitely worth sampling before buying, if you're on the fence. I bet you'll go FB. And you PROBABLY won't need to reapply, please disregard my statement above 😂