A Midsummer Dream

I bought a bottle of this off of ebay in 2016/2017 for a reasonable amount, as I'd desperately wanted to try it with that name! I pictured something more like Vagabond Prince's "Enchanted Forest", which is a masterpiece, as the listed notes of "A Midsummer Dream" evoked a mossy Shakespearean forest with hints of florals and fruit in my mind. And then I smelled it, and it was not that. And I put it to the back of the perfume cupboard without really giving it another chance. But here I am, eight years later, giving it the skin time it deserves and realising that I was wrong. It's a masterpiece. It's just an extremely complex perfume, and I didn't understand it the first time around. Firstly, as some others have noted below, there are definitely notes here not on the profile and the most noticeable one is aldehydes. This is a sparkling, aldehydic scent - and while Enchanted Forest also has aldehydes, this perfume leads with them and they stick with the scent until it disappears (on me, 20+ hours after application!). It's also NOT a linear scent and goes through a transformation with a narrative arc worthy of a Shakespearean play, so if you want the full experience, you need to stick with it. It doesn't finish as it starts. The opening act is very chypre. Lots of green moss, bitter vetiver, citrus, piney elemi, and the aldehydes which make it sparkle but also add a sharp metallic note. It's stepping into a dark, magical forest at night - Lysander and Hermia from A Midsummer Night's Dream, running into the woods to escape the Duke. This sharp opening burns off very quickly, though, as the vanilla and orange blossom begin to develop, adding sweetness to the moss and aldehydes. The middle of the play is still green - a nice balance of dark forest and sweet dream, bound together by the "fairy magic" of the aldehydes. Oberon has woven his spell of love. The notes mix and mingle and stumble about in the mossy woods, all within a cloud of growing sweetness. The drydown is sweeter than the middle stage, and it is beautiful and unique, the happy ending of the play. The final notes achieve a stable harmony, and the wearer gets to enjoy the enduring dream - the perfect "marriage" of aldehydes, vanilla, and moss. The closest perfume I have to it in my collection is the (sadly now discontinued) Imaginary Authors "L'Orchidee Terrible". It has different listed notes, but like "Dream" it is all aldehydes, sweetness (they say honey but there's vanilla there too), and a bit of moss (they list a "satin" note which, like many Imaginary Authors' notes is completely made up nonsense -- it's oakmoss, or some synthetic variant of it). The difference is that "L'Orchidee Terrible" is more linear -- it doesn't evolve in the way that "A Midsummer Dream" does. And it's less polished and subtle -- the metallic/fizz of the aldehydes is much more "in your face" and the sweetness is more floral and strong (I still like it). A Midsummer Dream is a perfect balance of moss-sweet-aldehyde - it doesn't shout, it sings like a Greek chorus, all around you as you go about your day. The aldehydic-chypre-vanilla/amberic is a profile that I love, but that in a collection of 500+ scents, I only have these two that have pulled it off at all. Which is a shame, because it's addictive, beautiful, and fascinating. The final act also lasts forever. I don't think everyone will "get" it, because it's not the straightforward crowdpleaser of, say, Elysium -- but it's very special. True perfume aficionados only! *The bottle I have it the metal cap version. I don't have the crystal cap version to compare scents, but if it has been reformulated, this review is for the original version.

In recent years there's been a lot of media talk about "quiet luxury" among the wealthy, and how they like to wear and purchase things that are beautiful but do not shout out their expensiveness or demand attention. Sometimes very wealthy people will have perfumes especially created for them, and will gravitate to scents that are beautiful and made with the finest ingredients, but which do not call attention to themselves. This niche fragrance from Roja Dove is much like that kind of fragrance (even though it's not a one-of-a-kind creation). It uses beautiful ingredients which it blends exquisitely, but these are not the kind of notes that will scream for attention. The core of this is the lovely piney resin elemi balanced with citrus (grapefruit and bergamot) and another rich resin, benzoin, with oakmoss and vetiver to give it texture and depth. I've been happy all day because of this beautiful long-lasting scent, but I am unwilling to buy a full bottle because of its exceptionally high price tag which puts it beyond my reach. But if I could afford it, this would be something I'd want to buy. UPDATE 12/12/25: I actually bought a full bottle of this--even though I found a Black Friday deal of nearly 50% off from a wholesaler, this is still (by quite a margin) the most expensive bottle of fragrance I've ever bought. But it is so special to me--it opens like a tangy fougére-chypre with the citrus up top (and with all the oakmoss underneath), and then dries down to something more like a spicy fragrance with all the benzoin. This has, as I said earlier, just about the best drydown I've ever experienced, and on me it lasts and lasts. This is not a fragrance for everyone by any means--although I've never smelled anything exactly quite like it, at the same time it seems reminiscent of much older men's fragrances, especially from the 1980s. It's beautifully blended, and smells refined and elegant. It's also superbly versatile: if you like this sort of fragrance (and I realize not everyone does), you could wear it day or night, in almost any season.

Wow, truly! I walked in with no expectations and this took me by storm. What a fantastic scent! Incredibly well blended, the opening is sharp, bright and uplifting with the citrus and elemi piercing through. At first my reaction was "this is a grown up Elysium". I do think A Midsummer Dream it fits that description as a whole. It has the same qualities as Elysium, just a lot more complex and much spicier. This morphs a lot on me, the brightness turns into a spicy cardamom blast and gains a lot of earthiness (the opening and that earthy phase strongly reminds of a fresher, less "venomous" take on Zoologist's King Cobra, which I adore) before it settles into a vetiver woody drydown. Usually I'm not a huge fan of vetiver but here it's quite pleasant, supported by other notes and nowhere near as dry and harsh as Terre D'Hermes (I respect it but I don't like it). In the late drydown, I get a slight bit of powdery sweetness that sits close on skin which got me a compliment, so that's a bonus. Super easy to wear, as a whole. If like Terre D'Hermes or King Cobra if you're looking for a level up on the Elysium DNA, this is worth getting your nose on. I still don't like the man but force is to admit that the more I explore the house, the more I get impressed by the perfumes. Expensive yes but very well pulled off. I'm going to be wearing a lot of this when spring comes. It's less of a winter scent, more spring and fall to me. It might get a bit spicy and overbearing in the summer. I get a good 6-7 hours on skin with decent initial projection for at least 2 hours, which is great for a citrus-forward scent. A very nice surprise.

ɖʀɛǟʍʏ ʝօʊʀռɛʏ ȶօ ɛռƈɦǟռȶɨռɢ ʄօʀɛֆȶ 🌈✨🌫️🏞️ Today June 24th known as Midsummer's Day marks the summer solstice when the earth has maximum tilt towards the sun. Hence it's the day with the longest period of daylight in one year. A perfect timing for me to share a beautiful masterpiece with the same name from ROJA PARFUMS. A Midsummer Dream is a very unique and complex summer fragrance that I still can't fully explain separately for its notes. Perfectly blended ingredients so smooth that comes out as a single olfactory experience for me. This is the only ROJA I find the best to wear in hot summer days. It has the best performance to keep projecting strong when exposed to high heat and sweat. It wears beautifully indoors and even more marvelously outdoors when the scent is carried by the surrounding wind. Wearing this immediately takes me away on a dreamy journey to enchanting forest full of mythical entities 🔮. Lustrous trees shading the entire forest from the sun and strong aroma created by the smells of moss growing everywhere. Variety of the most enchanting flowers that indescribable also mingling here and there. The air is fresh, so pure and clean with sparkling quality. It's like the forest that only exists in the Middle-earth where mythical Elves 🧝inhabit from classical novel Lord of The Rings. I hope Everyone can try and appreciate this fantasy journey provided by A Midsummer Dream. Thank you @rojadove for bringing this magical scent to live ✨ Wishing everyone a wonderful Midsummer's weekend 🌞 #vscentorientreview

At first spritz it smells like some type of whimsical green scenery with bright green mosses, sparking aldehydes, smooth vetiver and a good dose of juicy citrus. I see no mention of orris, but it’s so smooth and velvety it has to be there. I pick up elemi very easily but no patchouli. Benzoin and vanilla make up the backbone, while vetiver is the heart of the whole fragrance. This fragrance is interesting because it takes me to the outdoors, yet it’s so polished and elegant. Overall it’s creamy, woody and enchantingly green. I have no qualms with sillage or longevity. This fragrance lasts the whole day on me, and it drifts up to my nose with just 2 sprays. Such a pleasant, cohesive and balanced scent. Update 10/12/20: I find myself reaching for it often, and that's something I can't say about many fragrances. I am so glad I have a whole bottle of it! It doesn't give me migraines nor smell chemical. I bought it blindly, and I just thought it was ok at first. I honestly didn’t think I would reach for it often, but it has become such an addictive creature to me. Sillage is moderate, and longevity is excellent. Seek bombastic elsewhere. This leaves a luxuriously sweet, mossy, classy cloud around me. And Roja's sprays are The Best, delivering a smooth, ultra-fine mist to the skin.