Ivory Route

If I had to, for any melodramatic reason you could think up, keep only one perfume out of my dream vanity collection and then only wear that one for the rest of my life (the horror of the thought) ... I would choose Ivory Route without question. I smelled this perfume four years ago and it was love at first sniff. Not just for me but for my partner as well (him loving the future reality of me wearing it all the good damn time). Yet there was a deeper connection going on for us. More than just "this is a masterpiece fragrance"... to both of us this perfume smelt like who I am, my personality, bottled. I think sometimes we just stumble upon that one scent that feels like an extension of ourselves. Because of this, Ivory Route will always feel like mine. Fortunately I am not limited to wearing one perfume for the rest of my life so I tend to only enjoy Ivory Route in the cooler seasons as she is a bit of a spicy lady that packs a punch for most noses. If I were to really get precious about it, I feel like Ivory Route is best paired with autumn. Its notes are kept secret. That's fun. The vibe reads oriental spicy to me, but its not too spicy nor too sweet in my opinion but the perfect balance of both. On my skin its a projection beast and lasts for 8 hours. Which is great because this is an expensive buy for the rest of ones life... I receive countless compliments when I wear her, and even though I agree that Ivory Route is completely unisex I feel like the fragrance leans more towards a feminine guile, but again I believe anyone can pull it off, any gender, any age. I don't really encourage blind buying a niche fragrance, but if you haven't already, do get your nose on a sample. Ivory Route might just be your next favourite thing. LATER EDIT: I know I talked about Ivory Route being a soul mate frag but I don't think I did their description any justice. I just went on about how much I loved the juice. So this is my opinion of its scent profile and what notes I pick up from my full bottle: When I first spray Ivory Route on my skin its a burst of pungent boozy, woody spices. It smells completely unisex. Its bitter, dirty and a tiny bit sweet. I like the opening. But I LOVE the dry down. The change begins at the 30 - 45 minute mark when the vanilla really starts to warm up and rise to the surface, at the same time the woodiness sinks down and mellows out but the spices remain the same. However they are now saturated by this velvety sweetness. Smells like a Beanilla Vanilla is used for the vanilla accord to my nose, which is a blend of Bourbon and Tahitian vanilla. During the dry down something herbal comes out to play, its detectable now the woodiness has chilled out. The final stretch is the sweetest. The boozy vanilla is really prominent 8 hours later but still contains a lot of the spice and the wood has made a comeback but still is not as in your face as that first opening spritz. Summed up: A bowl of dry aromatic spices are mixed together and are thoroughly smoked. Then a pot of Beanilla Vanilla is brought to a low simmer and the spices are poured in. Oh, and the person who is blending this devine elixir is stirring it with a wooden spoon made of Oud. That's the impression this fragrance leaves me with! Again, the notes are kept secret so this is all guess work.

Ivory Route was a total surprise for me. It so popular and highly praised on social media that I was absolutely confident that I would love it. But it smells different to me from what I imagined it would hearing others describe it. And it proves that all the hype it gets is well deserved! It’s an instant love for me! I never thought I’d find a better, natural and realistic smelling basil scent than the one in Guerlain’s Allegoria line, Mandarin Basilic. Until I first smelled Ivory Route. The basil note in the opening of Ivory Route is perfection! It’s fresh, crisp, bright, with a hint of sweetness exactly like it would be if I were to smell a handful of freshly picked basil leaves from my garden. The concentration of natural ingredients and the quality of Xerjoff products never cease to amaze me. In about half an hour, the scent transforms from the fresh green basil into a smooth, soft and creamy mix of green notes and sandalwood. It’s so refreshing and woody in this scent, but very unique smelling. I am surprised that it doesn’t have vanilla, pink pepper or cloves in the composition, feels so warm, soft spicy and comforting. After the one hour mark, the freshness of basil starts to fade and the spices take front stage, but it doesn’t smell peppery. It smells gorgeous and different than most freshies do. It’s something in the way they blended the notes that make the juice smell incredibly good. I don’t know how to describe in words, but it smells great. It’s a versatile scent that works for most of the seasons in my opinion. It’s fresh, almost aromatic, green, woody, warm spicy, semi sweet and distinctive. Cannot say that I have smelled anything similar to Ivory Route besides the basil note, in the opening! As far as gender goes, I think it’s perfectly fine for both genders and would suits to people who love fresher, smooth and balanced scents. Simply by looking at the notes on Fragrantica, it could make you think it’s a masculine scent but it doesn’t smell like the notes listed here. It smells fantastic!

Ivory Route is a fragrance I have never smelled up until a month and a half ago. I purchased a sample from a trusted source after hearing great things about it. I would finally get my nose on it and my first impression of it was "Oh! That's nice." and put it aside. Over the next few weeks I would acquire more 0.7 ml fragrance dabbers and smell several dozen fragrances from several different niche houses - Frederic Malle, Initio, Histoires De Parfum, Le Labo, Profumum, Nishane, Heely, to name a few. Among these titans, there was something about Ivory Route sitting in the back of my mind... and that's where my love for this fragrance REALLY started to blossom. I can't tell you how many times within that span of a month and a half I would dab this on my arm and my face would light up with a smile. It's like finding the perfect person, in my opinion. You just connect. No other explanation needed. Ivory Route is not a fragrance you can just look up on youtube or fragrantica and get some other person's opinion, explanation, (including my own) or even try to "blind buy" with hype which is what I see too many people doing in fragcomm. It's something that needs to be intimately experienced for yourself, one on one, with no distractions. I got to gradually grow closer and closer to Ivory Route with the sample I had. Every dab on my arm was like a conversation or some type of playful interaction. I fell in love hard. Before you knew it, I had this thing in my cart and gladly handed over my money. This is an absolutely fantastic blend of sweetness and spices with the perfect touch of an almost smoky woods. It is in the top 3 most alluring fragrances I've ever smelled and provokes passion in my opinion. In an effort to sound like less of a snob, this shit is fucking fire and you need to get your nose on it if you haven't.

Really beautiful spices blended with an amber vanilla sandalwood core. I think what really helps here is this is a great blend of spices. I cannot pick out just one, but it feels like there is chai cardamom anise and others in here, maybe some pepper but this is not an overly black pepper scent. I’m not sure I smell the allspice mentioned in the estimated notes. At the base of it all is a really nice amber vanilla that lasts a while. I am a little more sensitive to amber and that’s what I smell the most of, but I know others smell the spices and woodiness more. The wood is a sandalwood, not green at all like a cedar or fougere, but rather a warm sandalwood that blends with those spices and vanilla. Great blend, also has an underlying musk to soften it up a bit. With how much spice is in here, it’s the most “inoffensive” spice scent I’ve smelled because it blends so well with everything else. I’m personally sensitive to patchouli, so much so that it just ruins some scents for me, and I’m not getting much of it here. It probably is adding some earthiness but I cannot detect the patchouli yelling at me like it does in other scents. On skin I’m getting more of the spices, on clothing I get more of the amber and musk. So take your pick how you want to wear it. This could be worn year round because it’s not too sweet for summer, but given how warm it is, it seems a better fit for fall and winter. Lasts a long time and leaves a scent trail, but isn’t going to project through the room or across the table which I think is a good thing. This is the type of scent to draw someone in and closer. It’s comforting, and yet classy. More masculine to me but a certain woman could pull it off well.

Got this in a few days ago and had set it aside while I was testing a few other frags. Decided at 4:45am this morning to use Ivory Route after the shower. Great Googa-Mooga!! What is this? I'm a big fan of the Xerjoff DNA and this has that but it also has what seems like a touch of secret PDM/Initio DNA thrown in. The open is spicy and rich but not heavy. There's a soft almost gourmand note that comes up from the mid that sweeps this along into an ultra smooth and warm sandalwood that has an almost tobacco note despite tobacco not being listed. The warmth of the spices with the basil and patchouli at the base keep the other notes forward and present almost throughout to the drydown. It starts mysterious and ends warm and comforting. I kinda love this stuff. Fragrance - 8.5/10 Projection - 8/10 Sillage - 9/10 Longevity - 9/10 I'll say that my Xerjoff bias is showing but I don't care as this is a definite recommend. EDIT: Update - I was out at a store and a group of three young ladies were standing very close to me and were clearly following along as I moved from a retail display to another. I heard a few nice words in Hindi I'd learned from my GF and turned and asked if everything was okay. The closest one answered me by saying they all thought I smelled wonderful and wanted to know if I could tell them what I was wearing. All three of them wanted to know and if they could come just a bit closer to smell it. They were all very polite and seemed appreciative that I spelled it out on one girl's phone for her. I was absolutely pumped. This was a very cool event and this is the fragrance I'd applied 12 hours earlier at 4:45am.