Amouage Honour

by  Who Loves a Good Blade, Baby!

….I never liked the story of Madame Butterfly.  It’s a beautiful opera and I understand the elemental idea and emotion but, given what type of emotion usually grips me, while everyone else is sniffling I’m sitting there, ruining my dental work and rooting for Cio-Cio San to plunge that blade into Pinkerton’s guts.  Friends no longer offer to accompany me to that opera. “We’ll wait for a Wagner”, they say …”or Medea”.  “much more you”

So it’s fitting that I missed Every Single Aspect of the romance that is in Honour Woman.  I’d read the glorious copy on Luckyscent and was very excited to try it – the notes!  The Notes! Pepper, rhubarb, coriander, jasmine, tuberose, gardenia, lily of the valley, carnation, vetiver, frankincense, amber, opoponax, leather !!!

SO right for my nose, my skin, my very being….

so, so wrong.

What I got was so far removed from any of those notes, save rhubarb (maybe) that for a minute I thought I’d maybe gotten a counterfeit sample.  On me, it smelled like a constipated frog burping up canteloupe.  Loving the Omani House as  I do, I was ….well, I’m not sure what I was.  Shocked, stunned?   Terrified?  Had I lost my True New Love?  Well, no.  After all, there is still Epic.  Tribute. Jubilation. Lyric.  Life can go on.

Turns out, Honour Just Isn’t Me.   But!  Read on…

After a last, desperate, failed attempt to get what the Luckyscent folks were jammering on about I took an opportunity to try it on two other people during one of my Saturdays Francine.  Mohammed, who introduced me to the Amouage line when it was at Nordstrom and  Miss Francine herself.

Well!  Finally!  It was lovely on Francine – I got hints of the jasmine and tuberose, with a slight undercurrent of the frankincense and a touch of the oppop.  It was lovely,.  A little melon-y on her, no frog.  But it was on Mohammed that Honour Woman lifted her rice-powdered face and belted out her beautiful aria.    The burping frog turned into a full-throated gardenia diva – and the slight blue cheese accord ( heavy-duty on me and, along with the rhubarb, is where I think I get the canteloupe-eating frog bits) well, it provides an interesting support for the lotv and the tuberose.   I still didn’t get the leather but I didn’t miss it – the frankincense is so beautiful in this (as it is in all Amouages) that it builds a sterling silver base for all those rich white flowers.  For all that, this isn’t a heavy scent at all – it is true to the more minimal aspects of Japanese-inspired perfumery – and there is an aquatic element in there as well – but on the right skin this is a shimmering, luminescent floral.   On others I could smell the romance.   Alas, for a woman like me who carries a jeweled stiletto in her evening bag, it’s not meant to be.

Honour Man is interesting.  I have not read Christopher Chong’s actual  brief  but the intriguing Luckyscent copy allows me to give my vengeful mien (and that dagger) free rein.    Yeah, like you didn’t know that was coming! .  Pink pepper, black pepper, geranium, elemi, nutmeg, patchouli, frankincense, cedarwood, vetiver, tonka bean, musk makes it a beefier, glammier Poive Samarcande.  I get traces of Epic, too, but  there’s a slicier/greenier edge to it (I think it’s the elemi, which is a turps-like resin – as if I lit a pine candle in my studio).  All in all, I see Honour Man as its own master – and I have high hopes for the son of Cio-Cio San…but which direction will his Honour take him?

Even though Honour is not for me, maybe it is for you!  Let’s see, shall we?   Drop a comment, tell me a story.  Do you cry with Poor Butterfly or do you give way to your Inner Ninja?  What are your hopes vis a vis the notes? Does M. Chong envision the son of Cio-Cio San returning to Japan in Zen fashion or does he go all Benihana in Bakersfield….the choices are endless.  Anyhoo, I will ask Pick to hit ‘enter’ on random.org once again and the winner will receive a carded sample each of Honour Woman and Honour Man.  Winner will be chosen on Friday am, announced next Tuesday.

xooxox Musette, who does NOT own that blade, alas.   It’s courtesy carters.com  oh, well…it’s a tad too big for evening anyway…

Amouage Honour samples courtesy Amouage