Naja

Although Naja was intended to pay tribute to the snake and its various symbolic attributions, I can solemnly attest to its chameleon-like capabilities. In certain aspects, Naja’s game of textures evokes the sinuous and slithering body of a snake, while in others, the ever-adapting nature of a chameleon to its surroundings. At first glance, it may seem like a predictable fragrance, but as you wear it, you come to realize that it becomes less definable. Again, Vero drew inspiration from the classics (Caron’s Tabac Blonde) and produced something new and singular, very much ahead of its time. There are many ways to interpret Naja: a honeyed tobacco, a soapy leather, or a powdery floral all seem perfectly viable options. It is all of that, and some more, and one might experience each of these personalities at various times. Wearing it, I seem to pick up the leathery nuances most, while analyzing it on the skin, it presents more of the powdery and floral facets of the linden flower and the honey. It always starts with the melon and linden blossom duet, swiftly supported by one of the key players, the honey. And while Vero has consecrated her love for using honey in other compositions, it is the first time that she relinquishes her beloved passion fruit for an equally vivid melon accord. Here, the juxtaposition of the watery and fresh melon over the leather reminds me of Le Parfum de Therese, except that in Naja, the leather is highly tangible. The melon sits further in the background. The linden flower accord is more prominent, powdery, and sweet with a characteristic lemony zing, and cleverly blends with the note of honey. The other most important player on my skin is the leather accord. It is not mentioned in the note pyramid, and I assume it is more of a facet that results from the pairing of Osmanthus absolute, tobacco, and Vero’s musk cocktail. One other thing I want to emphasize is how different it feels from the usual leather accords I have encountered. It comes across as creamy, unctuous, and soapy. When I say “soapy,” my mind goes to those homemade lard soaps that use only salts and no perfume. They have a very distinctive smell, which is both fatty and salty. Therefore, picture an unctuous, fatty, at times salty leather. Sinuous and slithering, just like a snake. I do not pick up the osmanthus and the tobacco notes individually, but I believe they intermingle to breed this new species of leather. Finally, the honey is equally important. A very naturalistic smell of honey, texturally accurate, slightly animalic, and only moderately sweet. The musks are cleverly used and not as overtly impolite as with other compositions, such as Onda, Rozy, or Rubj. I think Naja is one of those fragrances that will be experienced slightly differently by each individual. I have not yet read two identical impressions from people who have tried or written about it. Moreover, it may present various aspects at different times and to varying degrees, depending on how much one chooses to apply. For Vero, Naja was meant as a tribute to tobacco, and yet I get none of it. For me, it is a unique take on leather, which makes strong use of honey and is pulled out of the mundane, treacly waters by clever use of linden and melon, both of which imbue a fresh, zingy spark to the composition. IG:@memory.of.scents

An oddly "tart" tobacco if ever there was one, but a tobacco nonetheless! Naja opens with a strong, VERY VERY powdery tobacco - a fused accord from the tobacco + linden (lime) flower absolute. This linden note is also present in several other fragrances and is the source of the honey-like note present in Naja. However, as in real life, the linden note is strongly tinged with the scent of live insects - indeed, far from smelling like a snake, Naja's immediate image to me is of iridescent wings, aphid stylets, honeydew dripping stickily onto a fancy car in the summer heat and large, dramatically looping caterpillars. Smelling not unlike a bug-type Zoologist, Naja's opening is sweet, squirming and unctuous. The melon note is largely peripheral, far more restrained than in La Parfum de Therese or Diorella, and lends only a faint aqua-fruit backdrop which impotently fails to restrain the tobacco linden blast. It does, however, "moisten" the entire sensation, bringing the whole perfume away from dried pipe tobacco and more into a psychedelic, dream-like state. The references (in the press release) to hallucinogenic medicines do strongly apply to the scent, as it gives me the sense of smoking some strange herb and feeling dizzy on my back thereafter. Combined, this is what I'd imagine Absolem (the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland) might smell like - honey and dusty wing scales, Shisha tobacco and hypnotic, watery ripples of blue light. It's squarely unisex. As it dries down, Naja firmly chooses to become an oriental rather than a green or a chypre, and evaporates into a subtle, fluted sweetness similar to Diptyque's Volutes. I will need to spend much, MUCH more time with Naja before I can render judgement on how much I like it, but I can smell that its target audience is tobacco fans (which I'm perhaps not) who are looking for something ground-breaking. Though Veros are now very difficult to sample, I'd encourage any tobacco lovers to watch for Naja slithering through the side of their vision. EDIT: Going on a date later this evening and was perusing my perfumes, choosing a few which had potential to wear out. To my shock, Naja wins this time. It has enormously grown on me despite my reticence with tobacco notes - I get more melon when I smell it now and it works exceptionally well to balance the sweetness out. It's ominous, more mysterious and almost dangerous than I'd initially realised, and does very strongly fit the image of looking through half-lidded eyes in the smouldering dark.

"And it is exactly how you don't expect it to be" That's the quote on Luckyscent and the leaflet that accompanies Naja; in a phrase it sums up the culmination of Vero's work and the spirit of Naja that hovers above skin. Forget about her previous releases, as beautiful as they are, forget about Habanita or Tabac Blond that are said to be the inspiration; here, Vero shows us her signature, the perfection of her skills, a gift to her customers and friends that feels like poison and it's cure, like a shaman performing a spell, like being in a trance and completely awake. In olfactory terms, Naja shares a slight resemblance to Rozy, but only slightly, and while completely different from her previous work, Naja has Vero Kern stamped all over. The opening is the most beautiful melon note in perfume history, with maybe Le Parfum de Therese a close second. In Naja, the melon acts like the breath of air that runs through the honeyed linden and tobacco. It is juicy in the most adult way, quenching and appetizing in the same way a slice of the fruit quenches a heated summer body. The osmanthous and linden interplay showing their honeyed/apricot side, and the tobacco adds a much needed dryness, surrounded by a glorious powdery musk. The musk isn’t dirty like Vero has given us before. Here it becomes skin like, with a certain violet/lilac tinge similar in a way to Mona’s Musc. I was hoping for some more leather but unfortunately there isn’t any, at least on my skin. In a way, Naja feels like a cold scent. Imagine sitting around a campfire, there is fresh tobacco everywhere and the leaves are being cured and dried so as to be rolled. A gentle breeze is carrying the heady sweetness of a nearby linden tree, while eating a slice of juicy melon and smelling the violet powder you applied earlier. Naja in a nutshell. I was expecting something different, darker and Naja came as a major surprise. It took me a while to get used to it, but just like the light after the dark and the sun after the night, Naja is a beauty that stands on its own and shows the immense talent Vero has! I couldn’t be more excited on what is to come. Excellent longevity with average sillage, hovering above skin for hours! My winner from what 2017 has brought us this far!

It's taken me seven years to even start to get my head around this brilliant acid-green remake of Habanita. Naja opens with a high-pitched linden that's the truest I've found in any fragrance, but there's so much more to it than that: melon, which I usually dislike, tobacco, old-school powder (again, not usually a fan), barely-sweet honey, and a kind of green glow effect throughout that may well be the osmanthus. Sillage and lasting power are great, and development is slow and surprising, varying markedly depending on wear conditions, and/or what else I'm smelling/tasting at the time. Often the top-mid notes stick around for almost the whole wear, but at other times I get more of the sweet honey and woody tobacco base-notes, especially if I've smelled something straightforwardly floral/clean (e.g. handsoap) and then smelled Naja again. I struggle to say why I find the whole thing so compelling, but I keep coming back to my sample as an elegant, complicated, cunningly oblique masterpiece that has me rethinking what I like/dislike in perfume.

9Naja. Naja isn't a general crowd pleaser.If your searching out Naja- you probably don't run with the general crowd. Its for the perfumistas that enjoy Carons Tabac Blond, Molinard Habanita, Osmanthus in its fruity tones, powder, leather, and linden. It opens with a cantaloupe effervescence, followed about 10 min later the honeyed osmanthus and a powdery leather shades of vintage Habanita edt. It is deep yet bright, it changes and moves. I get a nutty cantaloupe sometimes, then the powdery leather then the tobacco undulates underneath. Every wearing seems to change but the tone of Naja remains the same. If you are looking for a modern Tabac Blond or Habanita.. this one is it. It does hold firm to the quality of vintage past yet feels modern. It will set you back $260 for 50ml but be assured you will not need more than 1-3 sprays.

Oh ... ooh ... oolé !!! This is a smooth, clear, delicate honey, first accompanied by a splendid fresh mentholated lime, dripping tobacco, osmanthus, green, amber, bitter patches and more ... but I don't care. This is a weapon, but a good one. It is extremely fluid, slow, very comforting, it can relax the mind and numb the body like a good drug! I am literally undergoing, like an auditory muffling of medium / high frequencies and an inner calm of the belly. Pleasantly feminine, but I recommend the test to any scented soul. Finally ... a honeyed fragrance, well done, not heavy with a nice delicate and extremely satisfying dusty drydown.

Naja is a big leather perfume formed of two classic leather materials: tobacco and osmanthus, so it's on the sweeter creamier side of the leather spectrum. BUT... it's quite powdery too (thank you linden). Superb quality of the materials and the way the formula structure is set up give it a very neo-vintage luxurious feel.

I got a decant of this jewel only recently, and I am heartbroken to learn it is no longer in production. I get a nostalgic note of sweet incense, almost an exact replica of burning Nag Champa to my nose, in a very comforting way. The scent evokes an aura of a velvet carpeted lounge filled with sensual decadence and warmth.

come on, there HAS to be musk in this

If you know, you know.... Sadly the review below by dr bola reads like someone lost a fight with a thesaurus in the candle aisle of an artisanal soap shop. By the second paragraph, the perfume itself has completely evaporated, leaving behind only dense clouds of “unctuous leathery honeyed slithering powdery floral chameleon tobacco melon.” At this point I’m not sure if Naja is a fragrance or an eldritch shapeshifter trapped in a luxury department store. The writer spends so much time comparing the scent to reptiles that you half expect David Attenborough to appear and narrate the dry-down. “Sinuous and slithering, just like a snake.” Thank you. I was worried the perfume named after a cobra might smell like a Honda Civic. And the absolute commitment to overcomplication is almost inspiring. Normal people smell perfume and think “nice,” “too sweet,” or “smoky.” This reviewer smells perfume and embarks about fatty homemade lard soaps and the metaphysical implications of melon over leather. “The melon sits further in the background.” Brother, it’s perfume, not stage blocking for Hamlet. The review also has the incredible ability to say the same thing seventeen different ways while somehow never actually describing whether the perfume smells good. We get endless nonsense rambling about honey, musk, tobacco, leather, powder, flowers, soap, snakes, chameleons, salt, fat, and “zingy sparks,” but not one clear sentence a normal human could use before buying a sample. And the phrase “musks are cleverly used and not as overtly impolite” deserves special recognition. Impolite musks? Did the fragrance interrupt someone at dinner? Did the leather forget to RSVP? By the end, the reviewer sounds less like someone wearing perfume and more like a medieval alchemist slowly losing contact with reality. The final conclusion basically boils down to: “It smells different every time, nobody agrees on anything, and I personally detect none of the thing it was supposedly designed around.” Outstanding. Five paragraphs to arrive heroically at “who even knows.” If you know, you know....

I shouldn't like it - it's full of linden and honey, two notes which often put me right off - and I wasn't expecting to like it, because of a previous terrible encounter with Vero Onda, which turned into straight eau d'urinal on me. But Naja really does defy expectations - this is more than wearable and even enjoyable, though I would never choose it over the magnificent Phaedon Tabac Rouge or other slightly more oriental-styled tobaccos. For my nose, the very natural tobacco note here works to smooth off the screechiness of the linden, and the honey is calm enough to add depth rather than going pissy (though the odd whiff still goes the wrong way if you're looking for it.) I don't get much leather; the overall effect is of a lighter, outdoorsier sort of organic tobacco scent than usual. Much more delicate and floral than many butch-tobacco-spice things - eminently unisex. The sillage is pretty restrained (which I like, in comparison to much other, more bullying linden-having stuff which knocks me right out), longevity runs long and strong - up to 10h. Definitely not a blind buy and I won't go for a FB, but I was delighted to have my preconceptions smashed on this one and to enjoy wearing it for a couple of days.

The osmanthus in the open of this gives the honey a leathery, slightly animalic feel. Very much as it might smell in the hive, buzzing with thousands of tiny bodies. As Naja dries down, the honey takes on a sweeter powdered character. For me this perfume is all about the honey, I don’t get much of the tobacco and the snake aspects of the inspiration elude me. It’s a beautiful honey fragrance, I wish I could have bought a full bottle. I’ve had this decant at least a year, sitting in a drawer, and I’m glad I finally experienced it. Naja lasts 8 hours on skin.

Cantaloupe and linden are very novel top notes, but after the first half hour Naja becomes a rich, powdery leather that will be familiar for people familiar with vintage leathers like Tabac Blond and Cuir de Lancome. There is a hazy hay note here too, and the feeling is warm, sweet, and mellow. Of the other Veros, I find this most similar to Rozy (honeyed leather), but it's definitely doing its own thing.

There's something bitter and slightly sour in it, reminiscent of her vetiver one. @moodypaws is kinda spot on :)

Smells a little cheap to me, off hand— starts off aquatic which I didn't love, but then it softens to leather, but ultimately it does stay in a pretty heady, oversweet territory for me. Starts off with the honey and linden, not sure if I really smell melon, but that could be what's leaning it aquatic at the top. It quickly softens into a gentler tobacco-y angle that still feels feminine but not overbearingly so. This middle stage was definitely my favorite part, and the sillage leans towards the leather so I think this is quite wearable. It sinks into a very leathery scent but if you smell closer it sticks to the powdery and floral arena. Wish there was something sharp to bright up a bit, but i would still say, overall, that it's a bright, sweet leather. It does have a sort of vintage perfume feel from the powder and leather. I don’t think it’s really for me ultimately, but it's an interesting scent that I can see myself throwing on for a date.

I was interested in trying this since I like linden flowers. Not so keen on honey since it often turns urinous. However the big surprise is that it smells rather strongly of Tiger Balm (menthol) on my skin. Obviously not a fit for me.

I finally acquired a set of samples of the new production run of these by Campomarzio70. I don't believe I sampled Naja in the original formulations (pre Vero's untimely passing) and I didn't know what to expect. This is the first I'm testing and the accord list up top had me a little concerned - sweet? Honey? Oh no, that's not my jam. But on first sniff, straight from the stick, it's light and bright and green but isn't sweet. Rather there's a woodglue astringency to it, with a Cristalle-esque powdery broken-stem green and a delicate melon and a soft continuous spring-breeze floral, that I assume to be the linden. I've only smelt linden blossoms a few times, so it's what I vaguely remember them to be. On skin the 'leather' note that people keep mentioning comes to life. I think this is due to the interaction between the honey and tobacco, which lends a smoother, cleaner 'warm hay' (a la Chergui or Tobacco Vanille but in an almost homeopathic measure). The aquatic notes really lift and give a balanced coolness to the composition that seems airy, nonchalant. When smelt altogether on skin, I can't help but have the memory of Aromatics Elixir trigger. There's something about the soft and heavy sueded base notes combined with the floating floral-melon in Naja that has the same texture as it, but as if it was lingering on fabric. I could actually see this going over VERY well with zoomers - there's a late 90s-early 2000s vibe to it that I can just see this meshing nicely with their penchant for all things late 90s - early 00s. It's not for me, as green things like this aren't my style. But for such a simple composition, Naja performs the magical feat I so adored Vero for: it lives fully. The memory I have of Vero's perfumes produced when she was alive was of scents that were full people - though not overly complex, they were prismatic, showing all the facets of the scent with each sniff, like a personality. Some scents paint scenes, some create atmosphere, but Vero's compositions felt like they lived whole lives. They felt like living. And I think Naja does a very good job of living.

NAJA is a fabulous perfume. it has, as was to be expected from a perfume by Vero Kern, many faces but the initial blast when first spritzing it on, reminds me of the true great perfumes of power: poison-giorgio-obsession-knowing and from another then 80s angle, dusitas oudh infini and le sillage blanc, the beautiful leather by MEMO french leather, mito, rubj and onda come to mind. of course this perfume departs from all named perfumes and then, not. it has the supertenacity of the "80s monstres sacrées", the depth of the dusitas, a very subtle leathery note different as in french leather but just as refined and the complexity and in-your-faceness of the other vero.kerns. it has a power as also frailty and adorable sweetness (osmanthus, tobacco, melon). I am not such connaisseur for fruity notes but in NAJA the melon adds to the subtlety and complexity. the mysteriousest [sic] ingredient is by far the linden blossom. In my sensorial repertoire all notes hold their own and reinforce each other. this is pure pleasure and one is happy to encounter this again as I did with the other "Kerns" and Dusitas especially Oudh Infini, la Douceur de Siam, le Sillage Blanc and Mélodie d'Amour. this is an exceptional perfume making the most of the osmanthus and linden and with the tobacco builds up a soft leathertone. but one could just as easily call this a floral perfume. all the paraphernalia around it (packageing, notes of its delicate shamanistic message) are stupefying. a joy to receive the flacon yesterday from Bloom perfumery. I have thought of a possible resemblance and Diors "Dolce Vita" came to mind. note: "resemblance" means not "similarity".

lively do I remember how you could achieve this perfume of a Special Edition out of [this is a guess] 7777 exx. with Bloom Perfumery, London. beneath on the label of the extraordinary black flacon is stated 'Lotto 6817' and I believe it came in perfume. [and this came suddenly above: it was 300 British Pound Sterling.] further you had an Amulet in Soapstone with Leather Chord to hang as Pendant against the snake's [Naja] poison. (gave that to my straight Twinbrother.) further you had Leaflets with forays into Tobacco, Shamans, Amazonia and a seething, brooding, junglist athmosphere. last night in bed I smelled my wrist and had to revive my memory further from off 2017 yet I succeeded to guess the Lindenblossom, Honey, Melon, Osmanthus but not the Key Note that bound all together which of course I did smell but it shall have been too familiar (while I never have smoked). Tobacco. this is a refined but also veritable Vero Kern perfume. especially the Lindenblossoms come on strong with pollen laden wafts and yellow Flower Might. actually all the perfume Notes came in Strong and Vividly just annexing each other and building to (what later seemed) Vero Kern's oeuvre. (1940-2018) Now, in these very Black 50mL Flacons you can still achieve her perfumes @Campomarzio .com and it appeared we had lost a truly exceptional and genial, but above all a 'Living to the Hilt' personality, Mondain, Extravagante, Chic.

Water tobacco, & melon honey lime dip. I don't detect any leather note, nor this is a leather fragrance! i do imagine the ad photo that came up with this fragrance which is a snake in a desert at night, however, i don't see this as a leather blend. It has that bitter water like some honey was poured in it, and sometimes it smells like the essence of the water that comes out of the melon! i feel it is like the tiny sticky sweet blend (around 3 ml) poured in a 2 liter of mineral water to lighten up the cloying concentration! that's the scent that i can smell out of "Naja". Vero's stamp is there as i can sense it, but this blend is not that groundbreaking as "Rubj" or "Onda", it's fairly done but more sweet cloying and sticky to my taste. I really had high hope for it since it's limited and it's a cause of some sort of celebration, but no, wasn't that good enough to fit such event. Edit (4th Oct 2017) the problem with "Naja" is that feeling of a glass full of water with few drops of honey, liquid melon, & linden that gives the impression of kind of lousy taste! The dirty water effect that distracts the senses of the charming tobacco, and the sweet osmanthus. Eventually, it's the doses of each note in here, some needs to be more than others in order to balance it and brings out the charm of the former blend, and in "Naja" unfortunately, it didn't reach that goal.

When I first smelled it I was a little confused and it's definitely one that takes a couple of wearings to figure out. The melon and tobacco are an odd combination to be sure, especially in the beginning, but as it dries down a very soft powdery-ness emerges that's different from what you'd expect from an opening like that. Throughout the wearing of it, it morphs into some interesting phases and in my opinion, nobody does this scent-chameleon thing better than Vero, she's always full of surprises. As it dries down, I don't think it's as intense or lasts as long as I would have hoped. With all of that said, I ended up LOVING it and will be buying more samples...just can't afford a full bottle. Also, you'll recognize shades of Onda within it.

Oh how much I was hoping to love this. I was imagining wearing this perfume throughout the year of the snake, how symbolic, how transformative. But unfortunately I didn't fall in love with her. It opens with honeyed melon and flower nectar. It quickly goes into the tobacco heart which is fresh and a bit medicinal.There is a smokiness that remains throughout the wear which is the part that bothers me. Since I like camphorous notes I thought this way I will be able to like a tobacco fragrance which I never do but it didn't happen with Naja.

Had a preview sniff and I am going back when it's officially out to try it on skin - sadly I had no unscented epidermis left that day so could only test on blotter :/ On paper it almost feels like a crossover of Onda (leather and a certain medicinal slant), Kiki (subtle fruitiness) Mito and Ruby (sensual yet fresh floralcy) with the heart-racing honey of Rozy. So a compendium of Vero's work so far, dense and luxurious like always.

Conceptually I am a big Vero Fan, so I was delighted to be able to sample this and not fall in love with it! A rich and nuanced tobacco scent on my skin, I found it delicious but not addictive, phew!

Wearing Amouage's Journey Woman today, I was reminded of the few drops I have left in my Naja sample vial. No idea if this is in production still, but if it is not, take a look at Journey Woman.