Amouage Beloved & Xerjoff Oud Stars Mamluk – Sex From A to Z

In other words, today is the day to review astronomically priced and really beautiful and interesting scents that ooze sex, like Amouage Beloved and Xerjoff Oud Stars Mamluk.  For those of you that have your hands over your eyes and ears as you are reading because you don’t wanna hear about $400 perfume, I don’t blame you. Save yourself, click the back button now.  But I do have one reason to be happy about the $430 price tag on Beloved and the 300-400 price tage on the Oud Stars. More on that in a second.

Amouage Beloved – I’ll just go all in, join the Perfumed Internets Bandwagon and say this is my scent. It’s everything I want.  It goes on lush with all of that lavender and clary sage frolicking through those spiced flowers, saving it from its own excesses.  Like a youth that goes galloping off in love with life, bumping into one bad choice after another, falling madly in love with other people, beliefs, ideas, only to fall into the abyss of disappointment when nothing lives up to what/who they believed and wanted – always a narrowly averted major train wreck, leaving behind parts of their heart, ideals. Some inner sense of preservation keeps pulling them back from the edge of Really Bad Things that Happen.

As the days of their life go on, that impassioned train wreck of what is now their past becomes an undefined part of them. You can see all the lustiness of their life in the eyes that still sparkle from a well of sadness, and you can hear it in the deep throaty laugh, and you can feel it when they reach over and hold your wrist when you talk about a loss in your life. They wear the weight of their life easily, it doesn’t wear them.  

Amouage Beloved should be a hot mess, and it’s not.  All of those elements – white floral, violets, dirty bits of civet, musk, amber, incense, immortelle, sage – become cohesive, never muddied.  This is not a small perfume, it goes on big, stays big, but it doesn’t have big projection. I can smell it near me, and it wafts beautifully when you walk, but it’s not Giorgio Beverly Hills big – the weird elements that you think don’t go in there – sage, cedar, lavender – keep it from careening out of control, sending you fleeing from the elevator if someone gets on wearing it.  The good news for why it should cost so much? I don’t want everyone wearing Amouage Beloved – I want it to be mine, mine, mine!!!  Where is the sex in Amouage Beloved?  It’s implied, not directly stated. It’s the after-effect of a lifetime full of sweaty sheets, thrilling trysts and steamy showers.  I know the bottle is pink, but, guys, I swear, this would be amazing on you.  I really want a guy to try it and let me know what they think. Every guy that has smelled this on me has loved it, and not just for how it smells on me, but loves the scent.  

Now, can we talk about the perfumer who created it, Bernard Ellena?  Click on over to Robin’s marvelous encyclopedia of perfumers and their creations and look at what he’s done before. Where the hell did this come from?  Is he really Jean-Claude’s brother? If so, I may have a new object of my perfumer lust.  Sorry, JCE, we are so over.

Xerjoff Oud Stars Mamluk – Gourmand Oud. Oud scents were just beginning to make me sleepy every time a new one came out, so imagine I was sleepy 10 days out of 20 the last few years.  Multiplying faster than fruit flies, oud in perfumery had become tne new “bergamot” it seemed.  Oud is interesting, but, well, it’s not that interesting. You’ve got your oud and rose, oud and saffron, oud and white flowers, oud and rose.saffron.whiteflowers.  Rinse, repeat.  Mamluk is a revelation.  

March once wanted to make a perfume called “Candy Ass” – I know she told me about it, did she tell everyone here on the blog?  That day has come, and it’s Xerjoff Oud Stars Mamluk. Candied Oud with a skanky backwash.  You’re not sure whether to eat it or bed it.  Caramel, honey and vanilla blend so beautifully with the oud, and you get a jab of sharp oud, then it’s covered over in more candy  Floating down there under it all is sex and more sex  –   with the dessert after and, well, before and during.  But this, while being gourmand and feels sweet isn’t that sweet – not Pink Sugar sweet at all. The oud, amber and benzoin choke off the overfilling parts of the candy so you just crave more, and it never delivers so much that you have your fill  Notes of honey, caramel accord, jasmine grandiflorum, osmanthus, Laos benzoin, vanilla Madagascar, Indian oud, crystal musks and amber.  

I thought about asking a price point question here, but thinking about how much something you love is going to cost you to get is depressing.  So of the two ambitiously priced scents I reviewed, which appeals to you more, and you can throw in the other Oud Stars if neihter of these are doing it for you in theory?  I can do 4 samples of the Mamluk as a drawing for commenters, but my little teeny bottle of Beloved is about gone now. Should I get more before next week (crossing fingers&toes), I’ll throw in that too.

Winners of last week’s drawing for the Aftelier Sepia samples – Connie, Hester and Tammy. Clickety click on the Drop Us a Note above, send me your address, remind me of what you’ve won, and I’ll give you a quick e-mail confirmation so you know I got your e-mail, then I’ll send it off to you!