Roja Dove: Amber Oud 2012 + Lily Extrait 2014

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Post by Val the Cookie Queen

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Roja Dove

THE EMPEROR´S NEW PERFUME OR IS MY NOSE KNACKERED?

Roja Dove Amber Oud 2012 and Lily Extrait 2014

The nose behind these two fragrances is Roja Dove “Master Perfumer”. Fragrances rumoured to be made by Roberetet, a company that works with an international team of 32 perfumers. The whole line of Roja Dove´s work interests me not. On saying that I have had a secret desire to try at least a couple of them to see what, if anything might actually warrant the price.

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor´s New Clothes was published in 1837 in Denmark. The phrase “The Emperor´s New Clothes” has become a standard metaphor for just about anything that smacks of showy pretentiousness, social hypocrisy, hollow ostentatiousness, pomposity and so on. The more something is praised the more it can become a thing of great, but perhaps imagined, beauty ……….

The Emperor's New Clothes BookDepositoryPhoto Stolen BookDepository ($6.75 including postage)

I swapped cookies for generous samples of Amber Oud and Lily Extrait.

Roja Dove: Amber Oud 2012

Amber Aoud Roja Dove FragranticaPhoto Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, lemon, lime
Heart: Jasmine, rose, yang-ylang, fig
Base: Agarwood, birch, cinnamon, oakmoss, patchouli, saffron, sandalwood, ambergris, civet, musk, orris root

Amber Oud falls into the oriental spicy fragrance group for men and women. It costs around 655 Euros for 100 mls.

Wow.

Sound fabulous? It is nice, harmonious and safe. Read – boring. For a perfume that uses Oud in it´s name, I would expect to see a more dominant use of it. There is nothing unique about this.. Call me snotty if you will but I would desire something that cries out “fabulousness and originality” if I was paying that price for it. It is quite smooth, but is smooth enough? I read that it´s a beast, luxurious, undeniably exquisite, opulent. Hmmmmm. Emperor´s New Perfume? Or is my nose is knackered?

Roja Dove: Lily Extrait 2014

Lily Extrait Roja Dove FIFPhoto Stolen First In Fragrance

First In Fragrance gives these featured accords:
Top: Bergamot, lemon
Heart: Jasmine, lily, rose, tiare blossom, lily of the valley, carnation, ylang-ylang
Base: Clove, woods, vanilla, musk.

About 365 Euros for 50 mls. “I have always loved the exotic, enveloping, carnal, sensual warmth of this majestic flower.” Roja Dove. Oh.

It starts off a lot like Serge Luten´s Un Lys, which I love. It grooves along with the similarity for about an hour or so. Then the Lily Extrait takes a sharp turn into sweetness, where the Un Lys
gets musky and dirty. Lily Extrait stays sweet and pretty and linear. It does remind me of an übersweet bubble gum that I used to chew as a kid and I cannot get that out of my mind. The longevity of it is epic. I got at least 14 hours out of it. I could still smell it in the morning. I am singing the great Lonnie Donegan´s hit “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?” as I write this.

First In Fragrance has both to sample

So for a good 1000 Euros, that is about $1350 I could have both of these, including the nice bottles? Astonishing.

Meanwhile, back to the football.

Bussis
CQ

46 thoughts on “Roja Dove: Amber Oud 2012 + Lily Extrait 2014”

  1. I should bake more cookies,
    maybe I’ll start getting Roja samples 🙂

    I like Amber Aoud, quite a lot. Maybe it doesn’t have a wow factor, something to totally floor you, but it is silky smooth and hints at the pretty parts of oud while hiding the nasty. Beautiful and very good.
    Not tried the Lily.

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    • Hi Elia!! Yep – I reckon the one thing people love more than perfume is cookies!!
      I am glad you like it. I just cannot come to terms with the price. At all. I bet someone laughs all the way to the bank. But it´s all subjective!! Nice to see you. Hugs. And a big bubble. CQ xxxx

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  2. Hey there Val,
    Yes, they are priced WAY out of my comfort zone. I have been trying a couple of them too. There seems to be a lot of Razzle Dazzle going on in this brand.
    Razzle Dazzle ‘Em.
    Portia xx

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  3. Fabulous post, Val.

    I knew they’d a number of price hikes but I had no idea they had become THAT expensive.

    I reckon the recipient of your cookies got the better end of the deal. I definitely don’t think your nose is knackered.

    This post has left me with a lemming though – I really want to try Un Lys 🙂

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  4. Great Val! I have wanted to try his line for years now. Now, I do not need to try unless they fall into lap. Thanks for saving my money. I love Un Lys. xo

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    • Perhaps some of the other ones are nice, but we have so much nice stuff, why would we want to contribute to this dude`s bank account??? xxx

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  5. So glad to have found the Un Lys lovers! A bell jar was my 50th birthday present. And while I do love lily, I won’t be trying the Roja Dove – my budget hasn’t reached the stratosphere.

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    • Hey there Empliau! You really don´t need to. It´s like a bad copy of Serge. Which is beautiful. My bell jar was also a gift. My husband figured out how to order it from Paris and gave it to me for Mother´s Day – total surprise. 😉 xxx

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  6. Hey Val! Tell it like it is. I love it when you hold forth!
    For a better value and more interest why not just pay $650 for 3 ml of some nice quality oud oil – or try Amber Oud’s namesake, Rasasi’s much older Amber Ood? Around $25 US buys 14 ml of this interesting floral, green, oudy, skanky CPO. It may be synthetic but so what?
    Azar xx

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    • Azar Honey!! Thanks! Amber Ood sounds extremely interesting. And who’s to say that Amber Oud is not synthetic? Who knows huh?? Exactly. Always nice of you to comment. Hugs. xxx

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    • Couldn´t agree more. You can see straight through this huh? Bussis Einsof! Thanks for dropping by. Hugs. xxxx

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  8. Thank you thank you, my wallet thanks you!
    I have just arrived in London, and on my list is Harrods top floor. There may be a surreptitious sniff of some RDs but perhaps I can spread my net wider!
    What ridiculous prices, is the value there?
    I mean, even if the fragrances don’t appeal to you personally, can you detect that extra quality?

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    • Shit. Look down the page Jackie, I put my comment in the wrong place. I always do one. Yours today. Aaaaaargh. xxx

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  9. I like Amber Aoud but would I buy the full bottle? No way. It’s just unjustifiably expensive. Having read your review, now I really want to try Lily Extrait. I love SL’s Un Lys; one of the best things about the UL is that musky & dirty stage. I’m not too keen on sweet but, still, I got to try this!

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    • Unjustifiably expensive for something that you “like”? No way. The Lily is alright -barely. All my own opinions of course!! But yeah – Un Lys is quite simply lovely. Bussis. Val xxxx

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  10. I like Amber Aoud a great deal. It’s pretty and silky and smooth. I just can’t imagine paying that sort of money for a perfume, no matter how distinctive it is. But them, I just ponied up a frightening amount of money for a small vial of O Hira, so I can’t claim to be any paragon of thrift.

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    • Hi FJ! Yep, we all have our perfumes that we would pay a good deal of money for, I know, but there are other things out there that we don´t have to prostitute ourselves for. And is Amber Oud distinctive?? Not one bit. Love Val xxxxx

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  11. Well, the lily sounds interesting, but I can’t really bring myself to sample anything so expensive. What if I love it? I can’t have it. And if I don’t love it, I expect I’d worry about my taste level or something. I’m sure there are people out there who wouldn’t blink at the price, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them (unless that lottery ticket in my purse pays off, of course…)

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    • No! No! No!! That is exactly my point. Worry about your taste level? Because everyone says it´s the best thing since sliced bread and you think it´s crap? You won´t love it.
      Big fat hug. yyy

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  12. Having read all sorts of favourable comments on the internet, I bought Roja Dove’s original Aoud unsniffed for a ridiculous amount of money. Found it boring and uninspired, not to mention those tacky huge fake rhinestone caps are fugly. I am curious to smell his Lilac extrait, but I don’t have any plans to buy any more of Mr. Dove’s perfumes.

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  13. jackie B! Welcome to my favorite city in the whole world. Extra quality? My opinion is 100% NO. That is what I was hoping for, although I don´t really know what I expected to find. I knew, from gut instinct that this was not for me. I was stoked to try it but …… NO perfume is worth that in my book. And you can pay a thousand pounds for some version. And the bottle is tacky as heck. my favorite hang outs in town are Bloom Perfumery of course, les Senteurs, both of them, Covent Garden for others …. and if I want a department store feel then I like Liberts´y and Selfridge´s and Harvey Nicks. But I guess you know all that. Have a fabulous time and report back huh??? Would love to hear from you. xxx

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  14. After reading First Nerve’s exposé, I can’t take RD seriously. After this post – and DIaghilev extrait notwithstanding, which really IS beautiful – even less. Besides, I don’t like the ‘sucker’ I’d have branded on my forehead in the (unlikely) event I ever did buy a bottle! 😉

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  15. Fun post, and boy are those prices eye watering! I have only tried Roja Dove’s regular Aoud, not that there is anything regular about the line. Well, except the scent sometimes, evidently. That one was nice, but not super memorable either. You would remember the hole in your bank balance sooner.

    And I have a bottle of Un Lys too, but it seems you have got Tara covered!

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    • Oh, I do have a bottle of Scandal, but I got it for £40 on eBay – which RD or his people ticked me off about on Twitter – and the one I bought before that was £95 for 100ml, which is actually only the price of a designer scent like Prada per 50ml, then they doubled the price in a very short space of time.

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  16. Aaah we all know who owns Harrods!
    And Un Lys is beautiful… I had a funny thing happen while wearing it last year, arriving to pick up silage bales for my cattle. There was a beautiful large garden surrounding the farmhouse where I took my trailer. Within a minute or two I was surrounded by bees and heaps of insects buzzing around trying to share my Un Lys. The other funny thing is that I’m such a perfume junky that I would even wear perfume to go to,a farm to collect fodder. Xo ps Portia Imdid try to email you those photos at the motor Yachties ??

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    • Hi Marion! Next time I am picking up bales for my son, who eats as much as a a bunch of cattle ………… Seriously, I wear perfume just about all the time to, regardless. And enough said about Harrod´s huh? Love Val xxx

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  17. Well, now I can continue to ignore Roja Dove, but have to try Un Lys. Fingers crossed I can smell the musk.

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    • Keep on ignoring Laurel. He will be no worse off for it because there is one born every day ……….!! Un Lys is worth looking out for if you like Lily, that´s for sure. It is simple and lovely. xxx

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    • Well Anka, it was England and I had my flag flying on rom my balcony, but they were beyond a disaster. If they got a decent manager and stopped trying to play Premiership football in a World Cup game, and if they dropped Rooney … etc etc. My second ram has now become my first. Holland. Hugs Val xxxx

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  19. I can’t believe the lily lasted that long on you! I wasn’t even close to that. Plus it was soooo light and sheer on me. I’d need half the bottle to get any respectable amount of sillage. I want to believe the hype, I do, but I’m sticking with Serge too.
    Hugs

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  20. I’ve only tried one of Roja Dove’s scents, Enigma Pour Homme, of which I bought a 5ml decant in a split. Given the prices, my expectations were pretty high. The fragrance was nice enough, but my world was decidedly unrocked, so I swapped the decant away.

    I have been meaning to try Serge’s Un Lys, so it’s nice to know how it compares to RD’s Lily. Un Lys sounds more like something I would like.

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    • Hi Jennifer! In this instance the overly ridiculously priced products are in no way worth it. Hype hype hype. Aimed at a certain market. Hmmmmm. I much prefer the Serge, although the Lily extrait is nice. Nice. As I said at that price I want a lot more than nice.
      Totally nice that you commented! Hugs. Val xxx

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