Neroli Nights

The thing that keeps me coming back to the SoM range is their ability to evoke images through scent. They’re almost like the perfume equivalent of paintings – each one captures a scene, a landscape, or an individual flower with incredibly evocative photorealistic detail. Neroli Nights is the very essence of a balmy Mediterranean summer. It opens sultry and slightly narcotic, with petitgrain, neroli, and a zesty citrus fruit oiliness that I can only assume comes from the yuzu. There’s a slight tinge of green that keeps it on the fresher side, but the overall effect is one of sun-drenched luxuriance. It then turns slightly sweeter in the dry-down as magnolia and labdanum take on a more central role, giving the whole thing a soft, clean, almost creamy vibe. It’s a smell that evokes images of cashmere and white wine, being at once both cosy and indulgent, and if I had to summarise the experience in a single phrase, I’d liken it to a summer holiday captured in a bottle. It’s a fantasy of evenings spent on the Amalfi Coast or Lake Garda, relaxing on sun-warmed terraces and breathing in the heady scent of the orange blossoms growing nearby. Like all of the SoM perfumes, it’s light enough to be unobtrusive in the workplace but carries enough projection to make itself noticed if you choose to layer it on for dinner or drinks. Overall, it’s a sophisticated and elegant take on the neroli genre – very much a modern classic in my view.

Very lovely neroli! On the drydown the soft sweetness emerge.

364 Working my way through a sample set: This started out for the first few minutes as a straightforward nice lightly sweet citrus generic floral, but nothing that leaped out at me. As it settled, it reminded me of a nice quality, generic soapy floral candle, room scent/spray, hand soap. The opening was the best part. 2/10