Mary Celestia

Mary Celestia is a unisex EdT strength fragrance from Lili Bermuda. It smells very good, and the story regarding its background and the salvaged perfume from the shipwreck is interesting too. It opens with juicy grapefruit and bright orange blossoms/neroli. The graprefuit fades after a while, but the neroli remains in a subdued form for pretty much the length of the fragrance. The website says that there is rose in the base, but I don't smell much rose. What I do smell is rosewood, which I very much enjoy. There is some amber in the base, but to my nose this is a primarily a citrus, neroli, and rosewood fragrance. The rosewood is very nice in this one. Longevity is good for a Lili Bermuda fragrance. I get four hours on my skin and slightly longer on clothing. Like all of the other Lili Bermuda scents that I own, this one stays fairly close to the skin, with modest and polite projection and silage. Also, like the other Lili Bermuda fragrances that I have tested, this fragrance is a great choice for warm weather, and goes as well with jeans and a T-shirt as it does with a suit and tie. This fragrance is much more expensive than the rest of Lili Bermuda's offerings, so I recommend that you try it before you buy it. I love it and bought a backup bottle straightaway, but everyone's nose is different. For some reason, I don't think that Lili Bermuda sells samples, so getting your nose on this fragrance might be a challenge.

After reading the story of how this perfume was created I knew I had to try it ( neroli & grapefruit being some of my favorite notes not withstanding ;P ). I was very happy to see that after the initial distribution of the original 1864 bottles, Lili Bermuda brought it back to their regular lineup! I ordered some of Lili Bermuda's samples / sets (all of the scents I've smelled so far from this brand are fresh and incredible by the way) and since there are no samples for Mary Celestia available on either their site or the internet at large & I couldn't quite talk myself into a whole bottle, I got the travel atomizer which thankfully does not completely break the bank and .... wow. I love it! Mary Celestia starts off as a soft muted neroli that still somehow smells natural and green for those of us that actually like the sharp herbal nature of the note without it actually being sharp at all. This perfume reminds me of the saying that "they don't make them like they used to" because none of the notes are fighting with each other & it is just a soft & balanced fragrance that has an old-world feel while still being perfectly modern. The only unfortunate thing is that it does not last very long but that is what makes it perfect for the spring/summer when a heavy fragrance just wouldn't do. Do you NEED this? Maybe, maybe not but I certainly plan on buying a bottle.

The backstory on Mary Celestia is interesting and certainly a worthy read on the Lili Bermuda website and news articles. Cassiano recounts it well below. Certainly the "eau de cologne" concept that was about as popular in the nineteenth century as it remains today is explored in Mary Celestia, a freshie rooted in familiar citrus notes, which serve in a rather brief hour-long opening that soon dries down, with a hint of rose, into a bed of amber, and more interestingly, rosewood. The rosewood is the wildcard in Mary Celestia, the note that gives the whole mix some character and in which the fragrance really resides mostly for the latter part of its life. The rosewood/amber leaves a sweet and even slightly spicy residue following the freshness at the opening, and it's pleasant and unusual in this respect. Now it's fair to point out that it's, at best, a moderate performer, but probably a pretty good performer when consideration its composition, as fragrances like it tend to be rather fleeting. The rosewood/amber combination lingers around for several hours, though. Performance notwithstanding, Mary Celestia is one of my favorite freshies. It's also the fragrance whose story drew me to the house somewhat. I highly recommend trying this one out, even to indulge your curiosity, if you have any for it. 8 out of 10

Got mine July 2017 and it's 1561 of 1864. I too am tempted to buy another one. I do like the fragrance. I bought it for the story. It opens with a big sour citrus blast and cycles through rosewood and musk in the hours that follow.

The perfume called Mary Celestia was announced in October 2014 and is, perhaps, one of the most emotional fragrances in the Lili Bermuda House. That's because it was born of the attempt to recreate a perfume that was found inside the Mary Celestia ship, which sank in the Civil War, in September of 1864. In 2011, a series of storms occurred in Bermuda, causing some pieces that were on the seabed to emerge. So, marine archaeologists went to check what was hidden in the depths and they came across artifacts of the time and, among them, a box with two intact bottles of perfume with the inscription Piesse and Lubin London in relief, a true treasure of 150 years hidden in the bottom of the sea. Piesse and Lubin was a perfume house located on Bond Street, in London, sought after by the world's elite in the 1800s. After a careful review of the content of the bottles by the Drom Fragrances team, the perfumer Isabelle Ramsay-Brackstone succeeded in reproduce the fragrance in a limited edition of only 1,864 bottles, in reference to the year the ship sank. The flask features a medallion that was inspired by a three-dollar coin depicting the shipwreck Mary Celestia, issued in 2006 by the Bermuda Monetary Authority. It comes with a velvet bag for protection and a box made of Bermuda cedar containing a red seal, as used in ancient correspondences. According to Isabelle, there are currently about 100 bottles available for sale. And part of it serves to fund the preservation and promotion of Bermuda's unique shipwreck heritage. Mary Celestia has notes of grapefruit and bergamot on top, making way for an even more luminous body of neroli, orange blossom and rosewood, on a base of ambergris and white musk. The result is limpid, juicy and refreshing. It is not a fragrance of many facets and great evolution and also does not have much projection. It is sold for both genres and conveys a sense of cleanliness, freshness and bathing. In my opinion, it combines with a walk on the Island during the sunset. Unfortunately, it remains very close to the skin, but maybe it is the concept of something that has been submerged for years, and that needs to be felt with depth.

Interesting backstory to this one about a cask of perfume from nearly 200 years ago emerging from the remains of the sunken Mary Celestia, and Lili Bermuda creating a fragrance in its image...I was certainly excited to give this one a try and the suspense built up as I awaited my order from Bermuda. There was no buying a sample, so with a blind leap of faith I had gone in on a full bottle (one of just 1849...the year the ship capsized). The packaging was promising, a wooden box with ribbon around it, closed together by one of those old-timey wax seals, as may have been placed on the original perfume’s actual cask before its seaward journey across (and eventually into and under) the Atlantic. So I carefully opened and spritzed the bottle in eager anticipation of something new and unique, perhaps a classically leaning citrus cologne with an interesting aquatic twist, a curious ambergris note or something distinct and inspired by old ships and the sea. But it wasn’t to be. Mary Celestia, while decent enough, turned out to be not much more than a kind of typical white floral citrus, with your standard “clean-Neroli and orange blossom meets bitter citrus” tandem, mostly unisex but perhaps slightly feminine at time due to its sort of delicate nature and a persistent white musk that comprises the base. I never picked up on any ambergris, which I was hoping for. Mary Celestia gave me moderate longevity and projection, around 4 to 6 hours altogether and not much to be excited about during that time. While good enough, I’ve experienced better fragrances within this genre, such as Creed’s Pure White Cologne, Petit Matin and/or Aqua Universalis, and probably some others (it’s not a genre I actively seek out too often). In the end, I sold this one off—the experience of reading about it and buying it having surpassed wearing it, and I never looked back or regretted passing it on. Overall rating, a neutral 7/10, because it is a “good” white citrus, with quality ingredients, just not a great one or particularly memorable in any special way.

Pretty, light floral with citrus. It is fairly generic, but lovely nonetheless. Perfect spring/ summer wear. I wish I could have smelled the real juice off the shipwreck- that would have been an experience. I received this as a birthday gift along with the print out of the story behind this. The bottle is elegant. I am very pleased with it. 7/10 A fun gift for the perfume lover.

Just read the backstory on this fragrance and the perfumer said this scent will get better and better with age, like a fine wine. So hold on to that bottle, because the best is yet to come.