Mirages Some Velvet Morning

To be honest the notes don't ring true to how I experienced this perfume. The peachy opening you expect of powdery Hermes or honied, peach classics or even other Andrier stuff is not what I get, it's a light suggestion of peach wrapped in a very dry accord of woody ionones, perpetually playing peekaboo with amber and vanilla sweetness but in this shifting, minimal but endlessly complex dance. Wierdly it finishes on patchouli, a material I couldn't smell throughout the whole wear until now, nose nuzzled deep into my skin...there it is. It's almost totally classic Andrier, everything in it's right place and just when you think it's boring or derivative of her other stuff, it changes ever so slightly, like a kind of rotating object catching the light but never quite revealing it's true shape. If you like musky, prada, powdery, woody, iris works from this perfumer, you will enjoy this. I did. Not bowled over though by any means I'd say it's the middle ground between that yellow one she did for Bvlgari (Zahina is it?) and her staple musky, Iris minimality of She was an anomaly. I basically love this perfumer and that everything carries her signature but sniff a little deeper and they are all subtly different and it's those subtleties that fascinate me.

Sweet amber... I can classify this into the general sweet amber, but this has some twists that makes it kind of different to be generalized! the peach skin makes it bit sour within & so the musk that added bit cheekiness to the blend. Can't deny, another beautiful HEAVY blend.

Overall I love the scent on first impression. But the sillage and longevity lack for me. It's actually a shame. Marienbad in the clear bottle has much more to offer than this. I have a full bottle, but would never pay full retail.

The main accords noted as an amber vanilla don’t do this one justice as it is quite a punchy almost animalic musky fragrance as well as a sweet amber. When I first put it on the peach came through very strong with a leathery touch, it kind of reminded me of a rich (feminine) chypre. However a good chunk of benzoin soon really brightens things and give you a good match to its name, a bright sunny warm day. As it dries the musky peach stays but is more settled and less of an animalic punch now, and it blends into the amber base quite smoothly, but it’s still quite a strong presence, So, nice fragrance and has character however I don’t know if I would get a full bottle as I think this one has the potential to wear you than the other way round.

Some Velvet Morning begins the way Prada always begins the day: an illusion of plush, that now-familiar hush of powdered musk, benzoin’s resinous murmur curling soft and sweet like warm skin beneath silk sheets. There’s a certain DNA threading through the Olfactories line I’m starting to smell now, every time. That sterile opulence. That breathy, museum-like coldness masked by fluff. Yet here the iris doesn’t quite glide in but... collapse, in a powdery heap. Rooty but not deep, more talc than velvet. It joins hands with a sort of balsamic muskiness, benzoin again which rounds it out but ends up a little stuffy. Like a dressing room left too long closed. Patchouli rough and unsmoothed, too, grating through the haze with the texture of shaved bark. Not that luxe, cocoa-rich variety either, but the dusty green kind. Earthy, fibrous. And then this peach... not ripe, not juicy. Peach as a texture, not a flavour. Fuzzy, tannic, like pressing your nose into the skin of a fruit that isn’t quite ready. Bitter-stemmy. Like apricot flesh clinging to a bruised pit. There’s a sourness here, almost aldehydic, though without the sparkle. Radiance or misjudged sharpness? It's like the ghost of a chypre, any niche fragrance of that traditional composition smelled from afar. That cool structural outline of a bygone elegance. Mossy-'chouli-floral memories, maybe. Or is it just the illusion of shape? From far away, it whispers vintage. Up close, it’s more indecisive blur. Powder, peach, patchouli, iris. They’re all here. Sort of. It's vaguely comforting like the quiet hum of skin-warm sweetness over a faintly sour green, yet I just feel left sniffing around for the plot. Not offensive. Just oddly blurry. Smells like a luxury handbag’s lining: fabric, faintly of fruit, perfume. Just musk and memory.