Hey Hey Niche Nerds!!

My mate Michael who writes for APJ is often turning up with unexpected gifts of fragrant decants. A lovely and generous soul I am lucky to have such a buddy in the same city. Today’s perfume was a very large decant gift the other night and I have been spritzing with abandon. Thanks Michael!!

Clove Absolute by Washington Tremlett 2009

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Amalfi lemon, lime
Heart: Clove, heliotrope, rose
Base: Incense, vanilla, French labdanum, patchouli, musk

From Wikipedia: Cloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. Cloves are native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisines all over the world.

Funny story! Well funny for me. I get a soy sauce smell in the first opening waft from Clove Absolute, it’s salty, tangy and a little bit burnt. Every time I spritz it the opening jumps up and takes me by surprise for about 5 minutes, it’s excellent. The cloves, lime and lemon then take over and already the vanilla pods are bursting through behind them. Though this is not the sweet biscuit and bakery scent that most gourmands are it certainly is foody. Is it possible to be foody and sensual concurrently?

My nose reads only the food elements at front and centre, everything else plays support and extra work. Clove Absolute has a definite Eastern-ness about it that is not perfume related but life smells related. There is also an oiliness, a sheen to it, a glistening, scintillating magic. I love to wear Clove absolute and have found myself reaching for it a few times since I was gifted a very generous 5ml, quite a bit of air in the atomiser now and I think it will be well and truly emptied through the Australian winter.

Dry down is sweet and warm, the patchouli/vanilla/amber/musk all mushed in together making a beautiful soft skin scent that lasts more than 12 hours completely smellable. I want to smell this on Jin but am too selfish to even give him one spritz of something I enjoy so much.

AWESOME!! You should try it.

Photo Stolen PlusEssential

Further reading PerfumeSmellinThings and PerfumePosse
FirstInFragrance have Clove Absolute €140/100ml or €4 sample

Do you have fragrant fairies that gift you interesting new scents? I have a couple and they are often spot on with my taste but always opening my nose to new olfactory vistas.
See you tomorrow,

Portia xx