Amouage The Secret Garden Collection: Love Tuberose, Blossom Love & Lilac Love

Amouage Perfumes is a brand that has been around for more than thirty years and was originally founded by a royal decree from the Sultan of Oman who wanted to preserve and promote Oman's history of perfume making. It positioned itself as a luxury brand back in the days when that was a rare thing and at the time was known as the most expensive perfume brand in the world. Partially for that reason they were not much on my radar for many years. Then a little over ten years ago Christopher Chong was hired as Creative Director and Amouage went through a rebranding process. I was familiar with the brand's oriental style perfumes but recently The Secret Garden Collection's pretty pastel bottles caught my eye in the store and I decided it was time to give the brand a second look.

Love Tuberose

How can I describe Love Tuberose in a way to differentiate it from all the tuberose perfumes out there? If a tuberose bloom and a macaroon had a love child, it would be Love Tuberose. Or if I filled my bath would milky white cream and tipped a cascade of tuberose buds from a bucket into the liquid, that would be Love Tuberose. 

www.100LayerCake.com

I love the scent of tuberose; its opulence, its velvet richness. It is one of the more robustly scented blooms in the flower kingdom; lusty and mesmerizing for those who love it, possibly nauseating for those who don't. Tuberose is a hard flower to be indifferent to. But really, what is there new to say about it so far as perfumes? Love Tuberose gives it a good shot, finding something new to say with it's opening of gourmet but elegant yumminess. After a slightly sweet opening where I get the hint of meringue with the tiniest, tiniest touch of finely refined sugar, the perfume then evokes the scent of a white, milky cream confection of white flowers.

www.Bite-my-cake.com

Blossom Love

I love pink. How is it that I never picked up this pink bottle to spray and see what was inside, because what's inside is a whole lot of awesome pinkness. Pink blooms, pink fizz, pink bubbles, happiness in pink.

www.Bridestyling.tumblr.com

Blossom Love opens with a sparkling fruity note. When I was trying to guess the note I thought maybe rhubarb or strawberry. In fact the top notes are listed as cherry blossom nectar and rose liquor. If you think this sounds a long way from the Amouage scents in the past, with their references of sacred Omani frankincense and spice being transported across the desert sands via a swaying camel train, you would be right. The opening is bright and effervescent, both tart and sweet and backed by a cascade of pretty cherry blossoms and rose. Meanwhile notes of ylang ylang, amaretto accord, and vanilla give a slight gourmand air. The amaretto accord, or maybe heliotrope, gives occasional puffs of powderiness but it is never overwhelming. This perfume reminds me of my favorite tipple, pink champagne, so delicate, bright, and fun!

Image from www.andeelayne.com

In my sniffing notes I mentioned more than once, "It has that French perfume feel." What I mean by that is that even though this sounds sugary and flowery like pink bubblegum, it actually manages to project a sophistication, with that smell that isn't a chypre but has a fizziness and a bit of formality. Notes of tonka bean, sandalwood, and cashmeran keep this scent creamy and smooth all the way through til the end, long after the bubbly "pink" notes have disappeared. 

Lilac Love

I haven't had a lot of luck with lilac notes so I was curious to see if Lilac Love would change all that. The first time I tried it the answer initially at least seemed to be a definite no. I got an unpleasant plastic smell, like the cheap dime store dolls I used to buy with my allowance when I was a little girl. It didn't last long, but definitely got me and Lilac Love off on the wrong foot. The next few times I wore the perfume I had this reaction only one more time. After a bit of a rough start the perfume careens into a very nice lilac note. After that it goes powdery and that is pretty much the end of the story. Lilacs. Powder. Powdery lilacs. Judging by the list of notes and some other reviews I can only deduce that lilac doesn't like my skin. In addition to the very obvious lilac accord and heliotrope, there is peony, gardenia, orris, cocoa bean!, tonka bean, patchouli, vanilla, and sandalwood.

I'm not getting any of that. Again, for me it's lilac and powder, not that this is a bad thing. Lilac scent is lovely, but I've decided that lilac is a bit like wisteria for me. I  absolutely adore them in nature, but on my skin they grow a bit tiresome. If you are a lilac lover, please disregard all of this because Lilac Love is indeed a lilac that an appreciator of the scent could fall in love with.

Amouage has recently released gift sets with perfumes and lotions in a set, as well as hair mists. These are all lovely spring-time scents and I had only one quibble which I was going to mention in the post.

Although all the scents started out quite strong, I felt like they ran out of steam fairly quickly and I was going to complain that for the elevated price range, I thought this was a bit disappointing. But when I woke up the next morning after the first try, I realized I had a lovely smell of cherry blossom wafting up from my left wrist and beautiful tuberose from the right. The scents were subdued but definitely present enough that I didn't feel the need to reapply perfume, so I will renege on that criticism.

If you're looking for a cheery blossom scent to welcome spring and if you can afford the price point then these three from Amouage are definitely worth a look.

Top photo www.emmablock.wordpress.com. Thank you to David Jones, Australia, for the samples.