Or du Serail

A dreamy meditation on dried fruit and Shisha tobacco. If your mind instantly goes to the cherry tobacco that graced your father's pipe in your youth, you're on the right track, but think more humid, more voluptuous, and more intricate. The fruit is a mix of apple, orange, mango and coconut, drizzled with honey and rum. The rich, golden tobacco is layered with greener, sharper aromatics, like clary sage and maté. Throw in amber, vanilla and labdanum and you would assume this would be heavy and velvet-like - but instead it gives the impression of silken veils, each opulent and shimmering with fine embroidery, but sheer and vibrant. The veils float and swirl and each movement creates a different layering, a new set of colors playing against each other. The impression is indeed golden, rather than dark, and playfully seductive. There is a teasing haylike sharpness that freshens the smokiness of the tobacco and the mango and sweet orange give the amber a twist. A luscious vanilla floats through like something delicious being cooked in the next room. Bertrand Duchaufour has concocted a delightful invitation to temptation that hints at decadence in the most graceful way. Charmingly sensuous.