It’s a balmy 30 degrees and, literally, 18″ of snow outside my window. But inside, on my wrist, it’s July, in Seville. And I am Entre Naranjos – Among the Oranges (or, if you’re really feeling silly, Between Oranges. Either one works for me). Entre Naranjos was my introduction to the Monegal line of perfumes – I’d not yet smelled it but I was captivated by the packaging – their signature faceted inkwell flacon just thrills my soul! I’m a bit ‘iffy’ on orange blossom so I was a bit worried – would I get that itchy soap feeling. Then there was the actual orange. I got bitten by another orange scent a few years ago – I was expecting a zesty, effervescence – instead I got an armful of Minute Maid. So….y’know… Just a Bit Nervous there. So I put off testing it, fearing the Dreaded Breakfast Beverage Accord.
But it’s 30F, 18″ and the wind is moving at a brisk 38mph. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I needed some Sunshine. So I cracked open the Naranjos. And wow, did Ramon Monegal deliver! Do you know the Ray Bradbury story “All Summer in a Day”? This is that story, without all the sad parts – and instead of incessant rain, we have incessant snow. And nobody’s in a closet. This is Everybody Outside! At first spritz it’s a sunny Summer day, walking through an orange grove. Most of the oranges have fruited but there are still some blossoms on the trees, which emit a soft clean ‘blossom’ scent. A fresh wind picks up and a slightly still-green orange falls to the ground. You pick it up and the bruised rind transfers a hint of orange zest to the palm of your hand. You snap the leaf off the stem and a bit of sap mingles with the zest, creating a bit of yin/yang, with the darkness of the leaf sap tugging against the sparkle of the zesty rind. There’s a bit of a tear in the rind so you begin to peel the orange, and the bitter pith creates yet another yin/yang tug, this time against the sweet warmth of your fingertips. The orange is unripe, so you don’t sample the juice – it’s enough to know that it is the promise of sweetness to come. You drop the orange in the compost pile at the end of the row of trees, while the sun sparkles like diamonds through the leaves. You wipe your hands on a crisp, clean cotton handkerchief, which you tuck in your bosom. Hours later, as you prepare to dress for dinner, you pull that slightly worn handkerchief from its hiding place and it smells nothing short of miraculous, the perfect blend of sweet warmth with a hint of sour coolness. Entre Naranjos promises the sparkle of a Summer day….and in the end it delivers on the sensuality of a Summer night. It’s a totally beautiful scent from beginning to end. Like most citrus-based scents the sparkly orange zest fades pretty quickly (I’m sure none of you are surprised) but I tried this last night as well (hey, it’s SNOWING!) and this morning I got the orange-scented amber blending with sleep-warmed skin. Oh, yum. The only thing better? If I’d awakened to find it on Taye Digg’s wrist instead of my own.
I’m glad this only comes in 50ml bottles. Otherwise I would be tempted to dive into a bottle and not come out until June. The way this first week of March is going, Entre Naranjos may be my only shot at summer this year. As gorgeous as it is, I might – might! – be able to live with that.
Notes, courtesy Luckyscent: Tunisian orange flower, orange, petitgrain, neroli, amber, Indonesian patchouli.
I think “naranjos” are orange trees and “naranjas” are oranges (the fruits). So this would be, “Among the Orange Trees.” I wouldn’t mind being among flowering orange trees right now, either!
Entre Naranjos is also the name of a novel by Valencian author Vicente Blasco Ibáñez – no idea if that’s relevant.
I’m a lazy Spanish speaker and an even lazier Spanish reader (though I love Octavio Paz in Spanish). Ibanez’s novel was part of an undergraduate course – and I slithered through it because I Am Lazy. I didn’t know Greta Garbo starred in a film version of the novel! huh.
…I don’t know if Sr. Monegal had Ibanez’s novel in mind (there’s no mention of it)…but I just discovered he is an author himself! He wrote a novel called The Perfumista!
http://ramonmonegal.com/novela.php
xoxoA
That’s intriguing!
WOMAN, you are KILLING me!! “All Summer in a Day” has haunted me since 8th grade. Can’t really say whether I love the story or hate it, but I am captivated by it and will probably be until I die.
I’ve been wanting more winter – we were supposed to get 3 inches last night, but instead we got: nuthin’. NUTHIN’. Stinks. We’ve had one good snow this winter and it was wonderful. Now I suppose we’ll wait for next year.
And I really have Orange Blossom Issues – too often it goes all soapy on me, which just bores me sick, and too many fragrances have been ruined for me by the Tang Dust Accord. BLEAGH. I like Seville a l’Aube, but when my small decant is gone I won’t replace it, due to that musty hint of Duchaufourade in the drydown. Just can’t take much of that. And I do love Sweet Redemption, but sometimes it’s a little TOO sweet, ya know, not the full-on blast of happy citrus. I did get about five minutes of full-on citrus happy blast out of that Chanel 1932, BTW. Wow. Gorgeous stuff.
Loved your description of the Entre Naranjos experience and would like to experience it for myself. Except, well, I’d like to sub in Tom Hardy for Taye Diggs… (how did I not know this guy existed until recently? I’m blown away. He’s even in danger of punting Matthew MacFadyen off the top of my YES! list, and that’s saying something.)
I’d take Tom Hardy, too! He is one of those Stealth Stars. One minute you’re all ‘whaaa? where the hell did HE come from?”….then he’s all over the place – and you realize you’ve been captivated by him for awhile…and you didn’t even know it (the first two films in which I saw him, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. But I thought it was just me. Given the number of films since, apparently not!)
ASiaD…..every time I read that my chest tightens. Ray Bradbury was a true master.
You would love this scent, Mals. No Tang Dust, no soap. a hint of sweetness – but not that molar-achin’ SCHWEET!
xoxoA
Such beautiful imagery – thank you for your post. I chose Seville a L’aube this morning for just the same reasons. If I hadn’t just purchased my decant of that, I’d be sorely tempted by this.
these are fun to wear in a side-by-side comparison! xoxoA
What a lovely review to read, especially as we are still getting walloped by winter too. You made me feel like I was whisked away with you for the journey. I loved the imagery, as that’s how I tend to see perfume too… the picture it creates. Thanks for the warmth and of course, thanks for creating another lemming. I’ll have to give this a sniff!
I hope you like it! xoxoxoA
Come to Hotlanta – we have sugar snow and SUN!! 🙂
I’m on my way! xoxoA
Hi Ms A. Dang, 18″? We got off easy with 8″, still the biggest snow of the year. No wonder you need sunshine in a bottle! Hang in there my friend, I think a warm up is on the way. My daughter sent me pictures of her jonquils breaking ground the other day; now buried in snow, of course.
Well, we got it twice, A, hence the 18″. First that stupid blizzard from last week, then this stupid blizzard. We thought yesterday’s wouldn’t stick. We wuz WRONG! So Naranjos it is!!! xoxoxoA
lovely review! I’m in Minnesota, so it took me a while to realize that your “balmy 30 degrees” was a bit of sarcasm, as if it is 30 degrees here in winter & the sun is out, that is happy, happy fabulous weather. Wishing you eternal sunshine, whether real or olfactory.
Actually, it wasn’t that sarcastic (well, maybe a little – it ‘is’ March after all). I’m right underneath you, in IL – but you guys live snow LARGE up there in MN. Minneapolis in February is one of the most terrifying places on earth! 😀 xoxoA
We had a dusting of snow overnight, with heavy flurries predicted for today. I’d have loved to have awakened to find Taye Diggs in my drive way with a shovel in hand… Instead, I’m sitting here with my coffee cup, thinking about how wonderful orange and amber are together, and longing to be in that orange grove in Seville!
Honey, if Taye Diggs shows up on my property I’ve got a way better place for him than the driveway! LOL! xo
I love this one, too. Azemour was a little too bitter for me, Seville a l’Aube had something in the drydown that made me cough, and was just too…intense overall. I like Atelier’s Orange Sanguine very much, but the Monegal has a bit more complexity along with the brightness of the orange. It seems to hit that perfect middle spot for orange perfumes. Orange and orange flower seem like they would be easy to build a perfume around, but they are not! For orange flower soapy-barbershop, Fleur du Male is still my favorite, and FK will always be the Orange Flower Master to me!
Hi, sweetie! I agree, this does hit that perfect middle spot. Alas, the OSanguine was the Minute Maid one for me. Too sweet and pulpy. It is interesting, isn’t it, that orange and orange flower can be so challenging. I love Seville – yikes! that it made you cough on the drydown! xoxoxoA
Mmmm … such a beautiful post, Ms. A! I feel your pain (sans the snow), as Madame Winter, it seems, is still not done with us. We even had a bit of snow last weekend — yes, even here in the sunny South! So far of the Monegals, I’ve tried this one, Kiss My Name and Lovely Day. The Naranjos was quite nice, probably the best of the three on my skin, but all of them pulled a slightly metallic note that bugged me a little. Might be something in their base, but who knows? And I am loving that bottle, too! But I’m afraid if I did spring for one, I would open and close the top so much that I would break it (you know, like a little kid who adores a toy so much that he/she wears it out, ha!).
Honey, it looks like January out there. 18″ of snow, grey-white skies, howling winds. Ick. Entre Naranjos was just the ticket. As far as the bottles go, Ann..these things are made so incredibly well that I doubt you could hurt them, save dropping them from a great height or running over them with an Abrams tank. Honestly, their packaging is among the most exquisite I’ve ever seen.
Those bottles are to die for aren’t they?
Portia x
They are! Like jewels. The glass is called ‘semiautomatic’ and the process by which they are made is intriguing.
xxoxoxoA
WOW Musette. You should do a post on how they make their glass. That would be super interesting.
Portia xx
it really is interesting – I’ll see if they’ll give a tutorial!
xo
Lovely post conveying a friendly orange scent and the feelings it can evoke when its bad weather. Thank you
We have a “pea-souper” fog, so thick I cannot see the neighbours house just their hedge! I reacted like you, yearning for summer warmth and some zestiness. So I’ve applied the much cheaper alternative of Lush’s Gorilla Volume 2 Sun in industrial volumes.
I found the Monegal’s to be generally high quality when I tried them in Barcelona but, like you, didn’t fall head over heels enough to part with hard cash for a bottle
Oh, I would buy a bottle of this in a nanosecond. I’m just glad it’s small enough that I can’t jump in it!!! LOL!
xoA