Ambre Suprême

Finally getting a chance to review this new Les Indémodables. This one is definitely a grower as the entire line proved to be for me especially if you are expecting BIG, BIG, performance or in your face complexity and raunchiness. No. Here is minimalist elegance. A Ballet rather than an Opera. A trip to Yosemite park rather than a trip to Disneyland. I have worn this for a couple weeks to give myself time to understand and reflect on what Ambre Suprême was and what it meant to me. My first wearing was strange I guess I wasn't feeling so enthusiastically about my day and I wanted something angry, brooding and contemplative to wear. Testing Ambre Suprême was probably not the best fit. It started beautifully sandy, savory and fresh like the smell of hot sand by the ocean and that's all I remember. I was impressed but not what I wanted at the moment. It was a good day finally. Breezy, cool, temperate, leaves fluttering in the wind yes, perfect! I felt optimistic and free-spirited, young-at-heart and I had been thinking about the next best time to try Ambre Suprême again and thought "why not now". I dug out the sample and tried Ambre Suprême again... Wow... This is magnificent stuff... Once again a savory and sandy explosion that has surrounded my personal space. I am digging my feet into the sand of a secret Island and the warm ocean breeze is blowing lightly into my face. A warm, sweet, sparkling, fatty and briny perfume. Leathery, complete and balanced with almost indistinguishable nuances of a fresh herbal clary sage, and syrupy, spicy, immortelle. It is smoothly blended. Blended to only the standards Les Indémodables can. Nothing like I've smelled before, not even a vintage Chypre at all maybe closer to a vintage Musk although those are much denser than this. I couldn't attribute any correlations to anything I've tried, vintage or modern, because even when testing things side-by-side that I thought smelled like this were different. My expectations were for something raunchy and musky and I will admit I was upset, but I have discovered I love it even more for what it does do. In Ambre Suprême, this ambergris is sparkly, sweet, powdery, a little salty and leathery. A happy Ambergris, perfect for cool days and seasons like fall and winter and maybe sparingly in the spring. It has push but it isn't loud so some may claim poor performance which is actually quite opposite from the truth as this fragrance has significant staying power however not as powdery and diffusive as Musc Des Sables. Wears more like a "second-skin" type of Ambergris. In fact "Sand Musk" would've been a fitting name for this creation rather than that one. Personally I would've switched the names. I like this more because it is slightly leathery and plays with the contrast between savory and sweet. But the more I think about it the more I find Musc Des Sables and Ambre Suprême are cousins. It is genderless by todays tastes, a beautiful ambergris musk. I will use this to bring me out of the cold and into a warm embrace of sweet briny musk and sparkling sand. Another masterpiece from the brand. 🐳🏝🧂 10/10 Edit: So I have taken out my bottle of Areej Le Doré Baikal Gris as a reference since that has real white ambergris in it... Ambre Suprême has the same dank, fatty, buttery, profile indicative of ambergris that is present in Baikal Gris in fact Baikal Gris was the first fragrance I thought about when smelling Ambre Suprême but they do not reference one another at all besides the fact they both contain real ambergris.

Amber Supreme certainly announces itself. The opening notes release a blast of an extremely salty and extremely fetid sea water (or whale vomit) accord that is either going to dominate your piqued interest or make you hang your head and say “oh no, what have I done. This was a mistake.” But, after a few minutes, we all can just calm down, relax, and enjoy what is an extremely pleasant ambergris-heavy golden amber. That’s really about it, actually. Ambergris literally translates into “gray amber”, and you can clearly smell it against the backdrop of the traditional golden bronze balsams, vanillics, and resins because it smells... well... gray. It’s definitely animalic in the musky sense; it smells like it was evacuated from an animal. The grayness also presents as a slightly sweet mineral type note, like freshly ground gravel rock pulled from the earth or a riverbed. As it should. What sperm whales cough up into the ocean from the digestion of their snacks are the terpene-heavy lubricants for the sharp and nasty bits - e.g. chitin constructed beaks, “teeth”, and “bones”, which is the most abundant aminopolysaccharide polymer on Earth. Ambergris has always smelled like this, and always will until sperm whales evolve to do something else (or humans ruin them and their ecosystem). What makes Ambre Supreme novel is... well... nothing. Except that, until now, we haven’t been able to smell this gray amber for a very, very long time. So many people who love this perfume would think it is a completely boring perfume had they been born two or more generations ago. But, here we are. It’s precious because it’s given something back to us that we dearly love and thought was lost forever. It’s therefore hard for me to objectively assess Ambre Supreme because it seems unfair by my own rules to rate it highly on originality; this template is extremely old, and Ambre Supreme hardly does anything new for an amber - gray or not - that hasn't been done hundreds if not thousands of times before. But for the scientific prowess that went into replicating to near-perfection that which we thought was lost forever and cannot naturally have back, I have to give it full marks and full respect. I own this perfume not because I think it, itself, is amazing, but because I want to make sure that somewhere in my collection is a representation of a long-lost and never to be recovered material that transformed modern perfumery by leaps and bounds. I am breaking another one of my own rules and choosing to own a museum piece, simply because it was recreated so precisely and faithfully, that I can actually afford it, and that to skip it would mean to let an integral piece of (replicated) history slip through my hands. And that I will not do. Thank you, Les Indemodables, for giving us back our history.

Ambre Supreme is a moving, prismatic aldehydic floral, with a tender salty oceanic shimmer that's simply to die for. On the very surface it's not a complicated scent, I get lots of jasmine and some immortelle, and it actually kinda reminds me of Mugler's Alien. However, describing it this way really doesn't do it justice, Ambre Supreme isn't a bomb, it's somewhat subtle (and frankly quite fleeting, at least on my skin), but even within those smaller confines it somehow manages to capture so much more life. Interestingly, for the lack of better words, I find it somewhat "bubblegummy", salty and aquatic, but when these aspects are the result of a master perfumer dealing with rare, exquisite natural ingredients, they're a far cry from the juvenile, mass produced designer releases that are often described as such. Needless to say, it's not what you'd expect. There's no detectable calone, ambroxan or cheap fruity ketones, there's nothing that smells remotely synthetic, it's completely unlike anything you'll find on the market right now, and yet it doesn't smell vintage either, it adheres to no particular rules and it's virtually impossible to replicate. It really shines in high heat, despite not being much of a freshie. Heat really brings out the shimmering oceanic side of the ambergris and the aldehydes, and it's not cloying in the slightest. If you want to try something special, or even if you just want to stand out, this deserves your attention. This might be the most beautiful scent I have in my collection and I cherish my bottle so much I'm almost afraid to wear it.

In the running for my favorite fragrance. In my growing experience, it is the perfect fragrance. I live in a very hot and humid climate and through some miracle of skin chemistry I have found a perfect match. Nothing smells better on me when it’s still 90*F plus at 9pm at night than this. Date night dinner on a patio—this. Outdoor concert drenched in sweat—this. Drinking beers with the boys around a campfire—this. Ambre Supreme has a strong presence. The amber is natural anmbergris and just simply different. Warm, strong but without any sea funk, but mostly just amped up. It lasts throughout the fragrance. It borders on pungent but isn’t. It’s perfect. The same amber finds its way into several other Les Ind offerings and allow one to get a dose of it in a more office friendly or daytime form (i.e., Escale En Indonesie). It’s really good and addictive. The opening is a hit of pepper and warm herbs that is relatively brief. There is a lovely smoky floral component from about 30min to 2 hours as the opening notes fade. Musky white florals. Perfect for night. The amber, present from the start, then just goes on and on. Silage is wide. It’s a comment magnet. Length is eternal. It’s going strong at 24 hours plus on lazy Saturdays where I need a shower from the night before but just haven’t managed it yet. On a jacket... expect days, weeks (?). I’m sure this would work well in Fall and Winter as well, anywhere a rich fragrance will shine. I save mine for hot summer nights. I would love to smell this on a confident woman.

What a beautiful creation, natural Ambergris can hardly get any better than this, unless you start wading through the jungle of artisanal and indie fragrances. If you want a fragrance that is also easy to use somewhere else but home and is wearable in every kind of way, then Ambre Suprême is definitely worth a try. There is 10% Ambre gris in this juice which is very rare to find from the market. Almost all "Amber gris" in perfumes is synthetic. In Ambre Suprême there is a silky smooth, tame animalic natural Ambergris - it feels salty, sensual, like the skin after swimming in the sea. It's addictive, I can't stop smelling my wrist when wearing this one. There are delicate, subtle florals in the heart but the scent is so well blended that honestly, my attention is drawn to Ambergris because that aroma is so special here. There are not spices on my skin. Aquatic or fresh, which I have seen in accords, must be due to the maritime atmosphere that comes from the scent since this is not that kind of watery aquatic nor fresh in the way it is usually understood. Even if I didn't like the simplicity in Oriental Velours and Cuir de Chine, here it absolutely works. I'm totally in love with this scent. Thank you for reading, I hope my review was helpful. I would appreciate a lot if you want to follow me on IG and/or YouTube (English subtitles): @ninamariahperfumes It gives me a lot of motivation to write more. 🤗