Elephant & Roses
Maria Candida Gentile (2015)

I can’t speak to how authentically African Elephants & Roses smells, but I can tell you it smells very good, and not quite like anything else I’ve put under my nose. The animalic note has the warmth of a beloved animal companion, rather than anything dirty or ferocious. Mated to familiar herbs, florals in an unfamiliar way, the result is something subtly special. Easily my favorite Maria Candida Gentile so far.

One to confound expectations – I was expecting an animalic rose (rowrr grunt meow) but got more of a lipstick rose (purr mini-meow). The animalic notes here are subtle – there's the brushed hair quality of costus and a touch of something a bit waxy and warm like ambergris.
Even the thyme that has got some reviewers up in arms is just a trace – on my skin it vanishes almost immediately, hurrah!
But what we have instead is a melange of notes that simulate lipstick, powder compacts, body milks, make-up removing lotions; gentle, somewhat elusive odours that may not charm everyone. There are tones of iris and vanilla sugar in the mix although there is no mention of them in the notes. It's interesting what these accents do to the rose – let's call it the Tocade effect, although E&R does not blare like Tocade. They enclose it completely and turn it into a baby powder rose; this is a world away from the deep, natural rose of Gentile's Sideris.
Slowly the fragrance begins to turn, as the salty vetiver and woods begin to reveal themselves, and perhaps we are getting a bit closer to the zoo now (the hay rather than the animals themselves). They work with the powdery rose not against it – strange but not too stage.
I enjoy Elephant & Roses quite a bit, it's playful and soft, but I can see that it is only likely to be adopted by those with ‘special tastes'.