Wandering Stars

This scent opens wet, faintly spicy but very cool and green to my sense. I thought this was reminiscent of galbanum and pepper but as I edit this review with both the perfume and the notes infront of me, perhaps this is the interplay between the sichuan pepper and mandarin mentioned above. Either way; verdant. Moist with a hint of storm. Rain forming in a changeable sky over a deciduous, slightly wild but decidedly affluent garden. This is not petrichor per se - but there is certainly a nod to that. Although it is not listed, I get anisic notes here like a bruised, damp fennel leaf or even tarragon - might be a hallucination because of how much the first part of this echoes my own habitat, in which fennel is abundant. I am a keen gardener and this part evokes satisfaction, hard work and above all, love for the land. Sublime. The second stage of this perfume appears a couple minutes into wear - immensely fresh but not in a sexless, innocent way. I find this to have a very romantic character. It is sensual but not really warm - not like bodies or skin. Instead, here is sensuality declared with the building blocks of life. Air, water, earth. And from that, we have another familiar green - like nettle roots being pulled out of a flower bed. A sweeter third stage moves in now - heavenly, heavy flowers becoming more prominent - from that, such a creamy, mushroomy, cis 3 hexenyl tiglate aspect of gardenia coming through also, perhaps encouraged into prominence for the outdoors effect. A non-linear summary of this perfume; humidity. Gardenias opening among waxy leaves that splay over cool, wet soil. Toadstools in the lawn. A garden fork pulling nettle runners from fertile earth. Vegetation. Ground cover. Old wood, dew, mist. Young saplings reaching up and rotten stumps returning to the biome. Not a photorealistic manifestation of the above - a dream you found yourself in. I prefer to go in blind or semi-blind when writing up about a new scent that I come across and so, in the spirit of that - I did not find the oud here at first pass. However, I can see on inspection it is exerting its gravity on the more noticeable ingredients. May also be responsible for some of the beautiful dampness of this scent - cedar too becoming more obvious after doing some research. The drydown certainly has a textural, wild feel due to the interactions between oud, cedar and oakmoss. I also do not find jasmine sambac - this must have become one with the gardenia. Not complaining. A noticeable sambac note would have stolen the show. So excited to read that an actual enfleurage of gardenia was used in this sublime creation - a dying art being revived more and more. Hell yeah. Always and forever will I love poignant florals with nostalgia and feeling but this has a hopefulness and romantic naivety about it too. My final notes: this perfume makes absolutely no sense in four walls. Don't waste it in such a mundane setting. This is to be worn outside, preferably at night, under favourable stars and with a lover, some hope of the aforementioned... or at the very least, pining for somebody who was once your whole world.