Rose Fantôme

Featured notes (from the Lvnea website): porcelain roses · immortelle · dried hay · graveyard soil · cepes · oakmoss · oakwood. An elegant, melancholic, yet also agrestic perfume. Although I adore the smell of many varieties of real roses, I have a hard time with prominent rose notes in perfumery, I find them either too obvious/heavy handed or overly sweet/synthetic. Here they smell real - small, gently fragrant tea roses - the kind you might find in a child's bouquet or a boutonniere. In the opening of Rose Fantôme I am reminded of Chypre Mousse by Orizia L. Legrand but with added rosiness, although RF heads in a different direction and feels more feminine to me in the dry down. It's surprising and lovely. Combined with immortelle, the rose here smells dried - a weathered token perhaps - but the overall fragrance is not dry, rather it is smooth and cool to the touch - What is astonishing about Rose Fantôme is that it does bring to mind the texture and temperature of porcelain. It is somewhat fleeting and ghostly, with its fragrance bubble disappearing and and reappearing throughout its relatively short life, a little changed each time this happens. There are smells of dry things in here as the perfume develops; a beautiful immortelle (honeyed straw/hay like), oak moss (and perhaps the idea of lichen stuck to old stone), and damp things too; earth, fungi and just a hint of some decomposing organic matter. It ends with a hay like whisper of rose - a ghostly memory of what was. It could come across as slightly vintage, in that it evokes a sense of history, memory and place. Yet I find it also contemporary/niche in its gothic strangeness. This is among five April Lea creations I have smelled, and so far I like her style very much - it's different, unusual but also very wearable with a classic feel -Three of them are loves for me, including this one.

I like the rare designer scent, but am honestly so disappointed by the cookie cutter options or overpowering sickly sweet perfumes over the years. This perfumer and the scents she creates are done with a truly artistic heart and I love that they are unique. This scent in particular came off as quite strong at first. I sprayed it on a sweater and let it be. I remember thinking I didn't like it. But every time I walked past the sweater, I caught the scent and can't understand why I didn't like it at first squirt, it kept drawing me in until I was standing there with my nose in the sweater, taking deep smells of it. I read in another review that there was a hint of old books and I agree. It's a romantic earthy scent, that is one of a kind, and it is always changing with time, but still remains itself through out and the rose isn't the typical overpowering rose, it is so very subtle but beautiful. There is also a 'spice' to it that is sophisticated—never sweet, sickly, or heavy. I feel ancient, wise, and a little like an Anne Rice vampire floating through a forest at dusk. It's longevity is impressive, and I feel it's the longest of all the samples I have tried from this perfumer, I can still smell it in my hair at the end of the day and on a shirt the next morning. I can spray this on and not feel choked out or gagged by it, and it seems to stick to my bubble, which I like. I would rather smell something when some one walks by rather than be hit in the face with their scent. And this scent trails, lingers, remains mysterious. I have never been good at 'picking out' notes from perfumes, I just know if I like it or not. And I really really love this unique scent and wear it almost every day.

This perfume knocked me off my feet and sent me on a goose chase of mossy/earthy perfumes of a similar profile (Andrea Maack's Coven, Oriza L. Legrand's Chypre Mousse, JMP Artisan's Mossy Soil and BeauFort London's Fathom V), looking for that hard to grasp vibe (the "strolling through a garden of a dilapidated Victorian mansion on a damp and gloomy October morning when you get a whiff of a floral scent from a bush of wilted roses to your right" vibe). While I understand that some US and Canada based indie houses make things that smell of wet soil, moss, mulchy leaves and mushrooms, the European market seems bare in comparison. "Rose Fantome" is a bit of a ghostly fragrance and tells it's olfactive story in bits and pieces, being one of the most evocative perfumes I have tried so far. To me it really smelled like wet soil and wet fallen leaves with a side of moss, a hint of immortelle and some wilted roses just in the background. I've worked on an overgrown garden throughout one dreary, rainy autumn in the Netherlands years ago and this smell was so realistic to my memory of pulling out vines and raking in wet leaves that I was truly amazed by it. Overall a mindblowingly beautiful perfume. It sits rather close to the skin (I would rate the sillage between intimate and moderate) and stayed on for around 4 hours on me.

The opening is giving white lilacs on my skin for some reason, but I very much embrace it! Dries down to a strong moss and faint wet rose, I am enjoying this a lot. LVNEA took me on such a journey, I loved almost every single scent of theirs that I tried... Their scents warm my little goth heart <333

Opens with a citronella rose that reminded me of a vintage soap bar. A light rummy booziness sits underneath and keeps it from going too soft. As it wears it gets more interesting. The soap fades and the earthier notes of moss, soil, and mushroom come forward and it blends into something less dry and more alive. There’s also a tang at that’s kind of sweat-like and makes the scent much more interesting than the grandmas roses thing I get at the start. In general, it reads more feminine than I usually gravitate toward, so I dont think I’d grab the full bottle, but my sample will definitely get used up