Rubj Voile d'Extrait

I believe Vero chose the name “Rubj” to hint at the blood-red gemstone, ruby. And while smelling the perfume doesn’t signal anything red to my olfactory cortex, but rather shades of brown, green, and white, the essence of what Ruby evokes most certainly hints at the symbolic meanings behind the color red, such as passion, desire, love, and strength. Aesthetically, Rubj fits perfectly among other mischievous, carnal musky-floral compositions such as Bal à Versailles, Salome, MAAI, La Tsarine, and Muscs Koublai Khan (due to the interplay of musks and spices). It is not as overly complex and intellectual as Onda, Rozy, or Naja. Rather, it is straightforward and ready for some boudoir action. It is Chris de Burgh’s Lady in Red. It is pure eroticism. To break it down as a scent, for me, Rubj is a spicy, musky, and floral perfume with some Oriental motifs such as warm woods and incense. The star of the show is the orange blossom, a flower I’m not particularly fond of. However, the way it is handled here makes me an admirer. It is strongly supported by an equally naughty, indolic jasmine, and supposedly, tuberose and neroli, but I’m not picking up much of the last two. The opening is briefly green, followed by an aromatic and intensely spicy embrace with basil, coriander, and my Holly and most beloved, cumin. Yes, the abhorred “C” word. And while Vero has claimed many times that she never used cumin in either the Voile or the Extrait versions of Rubj, I am getting it clear as day. I tried forcing it out of my mind, but there is no dismissing it. It is here to stay, and I am up to take it all in. I’m also picking up some basil and perhaps other spices along with an array of green elements. They work brilliantly to introduce the star of the show, the orange blossom; the latter is lush, waxy, and indolic, backed by a fruity and honeyed jasmine. They sure make for a dazzling pair. The base is dominated by cedar, which, alongside cumin, instills a rather dry quality to Rubj, incense, and a fatty musk cocktail with prevalent use of civet. Civet is always a great choice to pair with florals, and it works magic in Rubj. Seemingly, she is not holding anything back: cumin, indoles, and civet. But what sets it apart from the other perfumes mentioned, and with which it has a resemblance in aesthetic, is the artist’s touch, the way Vero handled these materials that can easily off-balance a composition and steer it into “not safe for work territory.” Rubj is like the beautiful lady in the red dress, slowly making her way through the crowd. She doesn’t have to say anything or try hard to get all the attention. There is nothing overtly sexual about her appearance, either, but the way she moves and acts will make your mind wander. That is how Rubj is. It sparks your imagination, while always poised, and the restraint is impeccable. Gallantly unfolding, the mingling of notes and accords is suave, while the synergism feels effortless. All of Vero’s perfumes hide an erotic side, as she wholeheartedly believed they should. Rubj, more than all others, is a fine example of that. IG:@memory.of.scents

Ridiculously beautiful! I have not wanted to own a fragrance this painfully since Malle's POAL. It starts off VERY strong and very indolic, to me, but the drydown is so beautiful. Sweet, rich and captivating. Truly a winner for anyone who loves white florals. I will mention that I do not get much, if any cumin from this -- which is a huge relief as I hate the sweaty "BO" smell that cumin usually imparts on fragrances. Just beautiful, beautiful jasmine and sweet tuberose (though I see tuberose is not listed on the notes, I could swear I smell it in here..) Now I'm curious about the EDP version... Edit - There IS tuberose in this version. I am looking at the note list on my box of voile d'extrait - listed notes are orange blossom, tuberose, jasmin, musk (though I am sure there are others most likely as well)

Absolutely astounding composition. The fragrant notes blend effortlessly with each other. After the initial spray onto the skin you detect the floral top notes quite clearly however after a while these subside a little to blend with the heart notes, I can particularly detect the more spicey notes. The heart notes blend perfectly with the base notes after a fairly respectable time leaving you with the most fantastic scent, not too weak not to strong Just the most perfect classy scent that can easily be worn anytime and for almost any occasion. Definitely a winner from this house. Thumbs up for a classy, unique and versatile fragrance. I would recommend anybody to give this a try!

I have been hoarding my little spray sample of this for ages, luckily one spritz is all I need to get me dreaming ..... and this is from someone who abhors conventional White Floral perfumes! Perhaps this is the ultimate Narcotic Floral for non-floral Perfumistas like me. It is so masterfully blended that it becomes more than the sum of its notes, which is something I am always after, and very hard to find. Vero Kern is a true Alchemist! PS Let me know if you have any available, thanks!

"Rubj voile d'Extrait" is an indolic and weirdly pleasing scent for me balancing on being a bit too indolic and therefore unwearable. I do get the excellent comments here - "Rubj" is a very well done and interesting scent. First of all I get loads of jasmine and very soapy orange blossom. There is some sweetness to it, but mostly it's soapy and citrusy and indolic. Base brings more soapiness and a very, very clean musc. Staying power was excellent for me and it radiated really good from my wrist. Due to soapiness not really my cup of tea, but I appreciate the composition.

I'm a little unimpressed with the Voile d'Extrait version of Rubj. There is no tuberose in this version---it is just a big splash of orange blossom and jasmine, initially dirtied by cumin. I like that slightly odd opening a lot, then lots of loud flowers, and then **poof** in no time, it is gone. Rubj Voile d'Extrait just doesn't speak to me. There are plenty of splashy big white floral perfumes out there that are more noteworthy. Hoping the edp suits me better

So beautiful and feminine. The cumin here gives the floral composition a freshness and a slight woodiness, sometimes it reminds me of cedar wood. It pairs beautifully with the orange blossom and tuberose bouquet. The texture of it feels oily and thick, very similar to my nose to Narcotic Venus from Nasomatto. It is almost like if we changed the warm spices from that perfume to fresh spices but the style of the white florals are almost identical.

Vero Profumo RUBJ (Voile d’Extrait) • This review applies only to the Rubj Voile d’Extrait, NOT the Extrait de Parfum or the EDP. Opens with a blast of intensely bitter orange woody bergamot that softens after a bit into a subdued mandarin. There is no blast of cumin or basil in this composition. However, on my skin the voile d’extrait actually reads as less fresh and much more syrupy sweet than the parfum. The fruit softens the bergamot with an overly sweet sugary approach to citrics as is commonly found in your generic fruity floral top-note set. Citrics here lack the sour offensiveness that sometimes used to offset the sugar, but ultimately this emerges as a very blasé and rather inelegant opening. The Neroli makes a later appearance which may be why the top notes are so mundane. The central core develops with mix of non-indolic white florals, and the Neroli tagging along, swirling in and out of a stronger orange flower absolute note, but a weaker tuberose/jasmine note than that which exists in the EDP version. There is no offensive cumin here to create skank, but the overdone sweetness lingers, casting a rather candied cherry cough syrup type cloying feel to the mix, making it ultimately less freshly juicy and sensuous on my skin than the Parfum Extrait. The basenotes are very frail and anemic here, even for me. The cedar/oakmoss/musk combo are clean, and yet they are overwhelmed by the core, and the overly robust, but ultimately humdrum topnotes. The base unfortunately contributes no noticeable profundity, shadow, or fascination in general support. The Voile d’Extrait version lacks both the height and the depth of the Parfum Extrait, and communicates a rather flat generality of fruity floral on me. It is not an ugly scent. I wish to be clear, this is not an offensive scent in any way. It is actually pretty in a very mundane manner. I simply find it utterly boring as it reads on my skin. I have not smelled it on anyone else’s skin, so my own personal testing is all I can tell you about it. It may be beautiful on your skin.

This is a beautiful natural bouquet, simple enough but as engaging as the other Vero's smelled so far. The opening is an enjoyable, unearthly, almost religious explosion. Jasmine is the star accompanied by green, bitter, free-range hints of citrus, cedar and orange blossom. It progressively becomes more musky and soapy, subsiding in a long clean finish.

with this perfume I'll try a little comparative essay in which I lay the Rubj 'voile d'extrait' next to some 'competiters'/sisters. to start with I bought (let us say from 2004? on) respectively the eau de parfum, a 14ml. extrait and now, the voile d'extrait. then I also would like to compare it with some other white flower-bombs. spritzing the vde now what first strikes me in the beginning is also the familiar blast of white flowers (tuberose if listed or not), jasmine and the strongest neroli I have ever smelled whereas in other (non Vero.Profumo) perfumes this note always quickly receded to my nose. what first comes to mind in this 'all in your face' quality is Giorgio Beverly Hills. in 1981 this perfume (along with in 1984 Poison) has put "perfume" as phenomenon firmly on the map for me. I love strong perfumes. so strong that they're a bit "wrong". but with Giorgio (and Poison) it was "all at once" to never stop anymore the dense, thick, antisocial wall of olphactory code 4 (lovely) while with Rubj it neither doesn't stop yet in its obviously development gives some leeway. then a sweetness occurs within the heady indolic and also cumin laced opening. I guess it is the sweeter side of jasmine. the cumin is also quite obvious while it isn't the fuck-me cumin as in the eau de parfum or, yes, the perfume, but a more "body odor" quasi-demure cumin as Vero often references to sweat when emphasizing the sex in Rubj. here it is perhaps a good moment to compare to Rubj edp and the perfume. what strange fate I had with that coveted 14 ml. flacon. sitting on the floor in my hallway I wanted to pour some perfume in a little spritzer and that would have gone alright if I didn't....had to use quite some force to loosen the beautiful stopper from the beautiful flacon. so much force that it plopped open and there went the first half of the content of the perfume. quickly I tried to dab up the perfume (on linoleum) on my wrist and in my sleeve. well what I could detect from this $ 140 spill was an enormous blast of cagefighting white flowers, fabulously filling the hall and my nose. the perfume had it all: the cumin, neroli, tuberose, oakmoss [whereas not listed], musk. the cumin obviously was used either in copious amounts or layered such that it suffused all the phases during all the evolvement of Rubj. (the other half of the perfume went along to the US and there it had slowly trickled empty in a beautiful 220 volts red wallet to perfume it forever but the flacon was empty so there went the (what I now see at Lucky Scent is the price: $ 255) in what accompanied me in an enduring cloche of neroli-jasmine-cumin. then the edp is also bolder as the vdp with the listed notes: Bergamot, mandarin, neroli, passion fruit, cumin, orange flower absolute, tuberose, basil, cedar, oak moss, musk. I would now say the vde is the softest rendition and in this, also a beautiful and Rubj my favorite perfume of the Vero.Profumo perfumes.then now it is time to haul in some heavy hitters on the indolic white flowers and I must say the first perfume coming to my mind is Versace "Eros pour femme". it has the same 'blast all in your face' quality plus the extraordinary sillage. but in the Versace there is another white flower at play which is as demanding as the leading diva here: lemonblossom. and it is really a pungent, sour-indolic flower which allows a jasmine and neroli to come through as her majesty sees fit. yet then this perfume is still more comparable with Rubj as the other Versace masterpiece "Blonde" with its strong rendition of Tuberose. Both Versace Eros and Rubj have the same grand entrance-quality, the diva the drama. then we have also Houbigants "Orangers en Fleurs" where we meet an also very accessible orangeflower and here the harshness of Rubj, Versace and Giorgio is swapped for a refined rendition of the totality of the orangetree experience with "eau de brouts-absolute" [David Seth Moltz from DS & Durga: "Petitgrain [peel rind] water absolute or eau de brouts is the equivalent of orange flower water absolute and is obtained as a by-product from petitgrain bigarade oil. It enhances the 'naturalness' of several other fragrances, e.g. jasmine, neroli, ylang-ylang and gardenia."] it makes it all, the Houbigant that is, softer to the tone. the last white flowered perfume I'd love to compare with Rubj is Dusita's "Mélodie d'Amour" with its listed ingredients [Lucky Scent]: Gardenia, tuberose, honey, peach, broom, lily of the valley, jasmine, cedar, musk. here we also are approached by a grande diva of white flower Alexis-Chrystal fights which produces an also very beauteous parfum at once carnal (gardenia and tuberose) as indolic sweet (jasmine, broom absolute) but I am tempted to say that in Dusitas Mélodie d'Amour these traits exist simultaneously and there is just a lot we can consider a "communality" (the use of honey and the fruit peach for Vero's passionfruit) and a lot of differences making perfumery the alchymy that it is. that would be my petite comparative analysis. concluding with the exceptionality of all Vero Kerns perfumes and especially a pièd-à-stalle for our venerated Rubj.

More weird adventures with Vero: on me, some of their greatest hits, like Onda have been catastrophic misses, while others have brought me right round to notes I usually loathe - I'd never have dreamed it possible for me to love a scent with both linden blossom and melon, but that's how it went with Vero Naja. This one is just more confirmation that I don't really like most modern chypres, and particularly don't much care for cumin+floral mixes - I love cumin in a decent spicy-oriental, and maybe with rose, but in this one the notes just get overly green, overly retro-perfumey, slightly choking - just not all that pleasant on me. I get distinctly greenish tangs up top, almost galbanum/green-grass bitter, not unpleasant in themselves but not helping win me over either. Musk and white-flower elements easily to deal with, but on me overall this is just a rather clashy cocktail which evokes more unease than pleasure. Can't see it winning over the masses - it all feels a bit too retro and individual for that - yet it's not so distinctive that I can admire-even-if-I-can't-love it. I didn't DISlike it, there are things to appreciate in the balancing of the notes; its performance is really not bad; but for me alone - a definite miss.

this has to be the sexiest perfume of Vero Kern. I had it in the Extrait (with Civet), the Edp and now I still have, from 2013, the Voile d'Extrait. it is still a heavy, heady White Flower Perfume yet the Indoles (of what seems predominantly the Orange Blossom) are drawn much, much deeper with the (White) Musk and especially, the Cumin. with Loud Laughter I have read Kafkaesques review of the Edp and how he couldn't get over that dosage of Cumin. All he got was Men's Sport Locker Rooms after sport. sweaty socks and feet and ... but even in the Extrait (yet that can be a Softening) I always smelled the Cumin as if you have never smelled Cumin, but collaborating with the other Notes (Orange Blossom, yes or no Civet, White Musk & Jasmine) for an unbelievably sexy, feminine perfume of dare and uniqueness. how Vero Kern did it, she did but she knows how to intensify each Ingredient of the perfume to their most Bright, Insisting, Impudent, Obnoxious however Exquise Perfumial Apparance. this is a perfume like a Laser Beam and for me it is the Neo-Giorgio.

I had a nice full 1 ml dab sample of this which I dropped while attempting to dab some on my wrist. (Note to self: don't talk on phone while opening those tiny little sample bottles.) Most of it went on the floor so of course I swiped up what I could with my wrist resulting in quite a bit more perfume going on then I customarily sample with. Also, it is beastly hot today (100s) and I've been out running errands today which is obviously going to impact my impression of this perfume. This is a sweet floral musk somewhat like Tauer's Rose Vermeille but more subtle and less sweet than the Tauer, more complex and less synthetic as well. There's some green in there as well. I like it but it feels more appropriate for someone younger. Also, despite the massive amount on my wrist, it faded quite quickly and at no point was the silage noticeable without wrist sniffing. It is very lovely though.

From the first time i sniffed it, i didn't like it at all as i thought that it is sweat because of that cumin overdose note, but the more i use it, the more i apply, & the more i give it time to settle the more i get attached to it specifically the d'extrait one with that silent jasmine covered by the sweetness of the orange blossoms on a bed of cumin. It is not a love at first sniff, you just need to apply more till you reach to the point that u feel happy when you see that bottle lies over there waiting to be used.

Gorgeous, but sold because bought extrait and didn't need both.