Ambrarem
Histoires de Parfums (2011)

Spicy, resinous, not overly sweet amber with an animalic twist to it.

Opens up with a spicy kick (on my skin mainly lots of saffron and a hint of pink pepper). Quite oriental, I can't deny. Then it changes after 10 minutes into completely different, balmy, resinous scent with some powdery touch to it. This last up to 3 hours and then the drydown comes. In fact, drydown is a star of the show here. Loads of resinous, sticky and animalic ambergris (I'd say it's ambergris, not mineral amber) with even more animalic and greasy castoreum. Yes, it is animalic and it's rather not for the faint hearted. However, it's not on that animalic level as some fragrances containing civet (e.g. Leather Oud from Dior) or castoreum (e.g. old Dior Jules). It's animalic just to make it "niche enough" let's say.

Longevity - 10 hours or so. Sillage - above average. Suitable for winter (possibly late fall), rather night than daily use, rather casual than formal.

One of the best (if not the best) ambers out there.

I love amber themed perfumes, and although I've owned a bottle of this for several years now, I just can't bring myself to stop hating it.

Granted there's amber down in there somewhere, but that gasoline overlay…what were they thinking ?

Plus bug spray. As an amateur entomologist I mean this in the literal sense. The tenacious odor that certain small beetles emit and leave on your fingers when you've picked them up and they don't like it.

After trying this yet again a few days ago, I'm sure to try it again in 6 months or so, and once again I will feel the same way.

Initial scribbles:
This stuff stinks, I kind of like sniffing it but it's not like some other fragrances like Cuir d'Arabie by Montale which actually I really enjoy although it smells unclean.
the very dusty (saffron), powdery (iris) and smoky notes combined with some animalic and oudh note makes this quite bad in my opinion.
- - - -
Upon further consideration, having used 2 sample vials over the course of months, I'd say this is a neutral for me. I just can't get past associating this with urine - especially the first hour or two. Too bad as otherwise it is quite enticing and has some really interesting facets, but I suppose if it didn't make me think of urine it wouldn't be as interesting; who knows.

By far the challenging one in the trio; Ambrarem, Rosam, Petroleum. The other two are rather timid, but interesting enough.

Ambrarem is sea witchery, seductive in its ebb and flow between marine depth and radiant warmth. The start is elemental: watery flesh of gourd; slick, prehistoric petroleum carrying both mineral and animal qualities; a bristling, gaseous air; and something like toasted nori. It is bracing and heady–unusual, to be sure. For the first hour, the perfume on my skin is bright and funky. It beguiles, like a siren, drawing the wearer off more commonly tread pathways in contemporary, even niche, perfumery.

To my senses, oud is a note that flexes to whatever interest the designer expresses. Which is to say, that I'm left only to believe or not believe when I'm told it appears in a scent, because it seems oud might smell like anything along a spectrum of preciousness, dryness, sweet, fungal (all of which are present here). It is not a powerfully woody scent overall, but rather, ambergris pervades. The rarity of real ambergris in modern fragrances indicates that it is also mostly an invented accord of aromachemicals, as abstract as remembering. These dimensions are fantastic in their fantasizing. Wet board, pale shimmering grey, wafting through darker juice. Castoreum's furriness is cloaked around these constructions.

This curious array of notes might be too strange to wear, but for the weirdly sweet bed of mid and base notes upon which they are presented. Even still, online reviews suggest that Ambrarem is too challenging for some wearers. Ambrarem forgoes any candy floss sugar, preferring a heavy resin-syrup that anchors the fabulous notes which comprise this journey. A saffron element emanates with a Southern-sweet-tea dimension, accompanied by an even, plainspoken vanilla that appears adeptly in many of the Histoires parfums. Most of all I'm comforted by that persistent, lustrous amber that shines beneath the magical tempest of this scent. I wear Ambrarem on colder days, but of everything in my collection, I try to get away with spraying it at least on my wrists as the season turns hotter.

Damp, rich and inky soil, full of crumbling mulched wood, shot through with lipstick iris and a no-holds-barred-sweet amber – this is the striking statement of Ambrarem and I am so glad it exists to make it. I can imagine it is the kind of thing that will be considered unwearable by many. Me, I feel like saying, ‘Where have you been all my life?'
I am naturally drawn to earthy tones and smoke, to wood notes that are so deep they sing of violence rather than the usual harmonies of fragrant wood types. And I love thick nectarous rose perfumes and florals of that nature. Here the shades of these things successfully intermingle to produce magic; granted there are no floral notes listed, but the surge of ambery sweetness gives Ambrarem that aspect.
I feel grateful that Histoire de Parfums can offer something so out of the ordinary and unusual that still, like the best perfumes, reaches out to some secret recess of the wearer's mental makeup. A perfume of communion.
Softens considerably over the course of the wear and snuggles up just fine.

Ambrarem opens with a beautiful, powerful, evocative powdery-chypre accord of amber, a resinous note which to me smells almost like olibanum (the elemi?), a waxy, buttery note of iris, balsamic-earthy green notes and something underneath which may be oud and something dustier like dry tobacco or other woods. Elegant and pleasantly noble, with an intricated personality ranging from dark and gloomy to the mature and self-conscious sensuality of a classic "poudré" scent, warm, rich and nostalgic, softened by amber which creates a dusty, warm, sweet cradle for the heart of the scent. In the middle there is also a herbal-fruity accord with a sort of earthy bittersweet feature that kind of reminds me of rhubarb, and that I guess is maybe due to spices and red pepper. I miss a bit the sandalwood note which is supposed to be there. The evolution leads towards a smoky-earthy drydown, with a fascinating gradual progression that comprises a sort of an arising fog that slowly captivates and envelops all the warm and sweet initial notes in a dark oud aroma – a discreet, pleasant, smoky and gentle oud note. Complex but incredibly mellow and harmonic, yet somehow not memorable (I don't know why exactly, just a feeling - all notes are kind of "ordinary", good but nothing really new or "wowing") but surely pleasant. One of those scents I personally would not rush out home to buy right away, but surely I would at a bargain discount sale.

7,5/10