For some years Areej le Doré, aka Russian Adam (his emails to me start with the Russian greeting привет, hello), has been patiently sending me generous samples, sometimes full bottles, while I wrote little about his works. They always struck me as both pleasant and unconvincing. They smelled very much the way the air in a perfume store of Oman or India would smell—a jumble of dark, rich smells fighting with each other to fill the space.
Areej le Doré sent me some samples of his latest work. He seems to have followed a similar evolution to Sultan Pasha. He has moved on from the now-or-never offers of confections based on compounding rare batches of raw materials. Many of these sold out immediately, never to be seen again. He now seems to have settled on a few stable compositions to be maintained over time. There is the usual patter on his website about his mastery of oud distillation and access to weird and wonderful raw materials. I have no reason to doubt his words specifically, but in an industry filled to the rafters with lies, and given his anonymity and well-maintained aura of mystery, my BS detector keeps blinking.
As it happens, when his samples came, I had been smelling some all-natural creations and wishing they were more powerful. My wish was granted a thousandfold. These five are massive, rich, dense, stonking fragrances that fill the room, slam doors, scare away cats and wake up neighbors. Tania Sanchez complained about the loudness, and I was temporarily thrown off my stride. But the truth is, I like these monster fragrances, though I am not sure who could wear them.
When the intensity had calmed down, from up-close volcanic eruption to a mere Niagara Falls, I did notice some surprisingly solid drydown notes suggestive of aromachemicals. ALD is coy about this, and owns up to “an occasional, gentle touch of high quality, synthetic materials whenever it is necessary.” This is like saying, “We may send in a few gentle lions into the arena whenever the mood requires it.” I am certainly not averse to the mixture of naturals and aromachemicals, which I believe to be essential to great perfumery. The effect here is to give megalithic drydowns—no bad thing.
Below, reviews of Paradise Soil, Cuirtis, Creme de la Creme, Forbidden Flower, Royal Barn.