Amber: 69 posts

At Notes Shanghai, the Born to Stand Out booth was impossible to miss. A blaze of red, pop-art prints, and crowds three rows deep—all trying to get a whiff of the brand’s latest releases. I admit that I hadn’t heard of this Korean house before the fair, but a perfumer friend insisted I stop by: “They’re doing something interesting,” she said. She was right.

The founder, Jun Lim, guided me through several perfumes, but the one that immediately caught my attention was Black Crème, a new creation by Quentin Bisch. If you know Bisch’s style—those bold, ambery-woody harmonies that manage to be both extroverted and impeccably polished—you’ll recognize his hand here at once.

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Guerlain Shalimar L’Essence (українська версія)

When a house like Guerlain marks the centenary of its most famous perfume, expectations run high. Shalimar is more than a fragrance; it is a myth. Born in 1925, Jacques Guerlain’s creation was radical in its structure: a dazzling bergamot opening tumbling into smoke, balsams, and a warm, animalic vanilla base. It was perfume as sensation, unapologetically modern and deeply sensual.

Shalimar L’Essence, launched in 2025 by Delphine Jelk, does not attempt to recreate that audacity. Instead, it revives the formula of Shalimar Millésime Vanilla Planifolia (2021), a limited edition that quickly became a cult favorite. Fans of that release will be pleased to know that L’Essence brings the same opulent, liqueur-like vanilla into the permanent collection.

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Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540? Oh yes, it’s everywhere. You can smell it in elevators, cafés, and occasionally on buses that really shouldn’t be carrying anything so expensive. Except some people swear they smell…nothing. They sniff, they spray, they press their wrist to their nose—and all they get is disappointment. Meanwhile, the rest of us are quietly choking on what feels like a candyfloss thundercloud.

So, what’s going on? Baccarat Rouge 540 leans heavily on ambroxan (amber-woody), Veltol/maltol (cotton candy), and other woody synthetics. These are all potent materials. They’re also molecules that many people simply can’t smell.

It’s called selective anosmia. Up to 20% of the population is “blind” to certain musks, ambers, or woods. If your olfactory receptors don’t recognize ambroxan, you’ll get nothing.

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Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540 is a trickster of a perfume. I first smelled it not in a gilded boutique, but in a marshrutka in Poltava. Outside, the streets were lined with sandbags and the windows blast-proofed; inside, we were wedged together under the scent of stale cigarette smoke and damp wool. And then—floating above it all—came this unmistakable cloud of Baccarat Rouge 540, as if the bus had driven straight through the lobby of the Ritz.

That shimmering force field comes from a complex amber-woody accord supported by oak moss and Veltol. Here, it’s used at architecture-level dosage, lending a dry, vibrating presence that refuses to fade. One structural pillar is ambroxan, which amplifies and diffuses the perfume’s sweetness. There is also Veltol, the cotton-candy molecule that lends a burnt caramel accent to the amber accord. Together, the notes create an amber woody-mineral gourmand hybrid, sweet but not edible, crystalline rather than creamy. The effect is elegant and gentle on first inhale, yet its projection and longevity defy all logic.

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When the Hermessence collection was first launched in 2004, it was conceived as an olfactory haiku—a few subtle details combined to create a complex impression. I still remain partial to the original creations like Vétiver Tonka and Ambre Narguilé, but the Middle East-inspired trio of Myrrhe Églantine, Cèdre Sambac, Agar Ebène has become my favorite. The compositions are complex and layered, with the classical Hermès radiance.

Myrrhe Églantine, for instance, plays with the shimmering effect of rose, setting it against a velvety background. This contrast has fascinated me from the first time I tried the perfume and the more I wear it, the more beguiling it becomes. The fragrance starts out on a sweet citrus, followed by a dark glimpse of violet. Unexpectedly, however, the notes fuse into an illusion of a crimson rose. When later, myrrh, a plush, resinous material that smells like licorice, woods and unburned incense, stakes its claims, the rose becomes even warmer.

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