Homage Attar
Amouage (2008)

(Variations with formulations and batches are highly pronounced. This is a bottle with the black top in the beige box.)

This must be what heaven smells like - or whatever it is that Islamicists call heaven, I cannot recall at the moment. It is an absolutely gorgeous mélange of rose, frankincense, oud, ambers and lemon. It is also celestial and divine in another way: all religions say that "God" will never be perfectly present in front of your face unless he's sending you immediately to an afterlife. You've screwed up big time, somehow, if "God" appears to you outside of a transition to the afterlife. Instead, God is a presence that can be felt if you pay attention. Bringing my arms and hands to my nose I can definitely smell Homage, stately and present, but when my skin is not directly in front of my nose I can feel Homage's presence only by fleeting moments of it in the air as I move around. People say this projects like a spotlight and trails like biochemical warfare, but I don't get that. Either I'm slight anosmic to it, or perhaps my bottle is a bit turned (seems unlikely as all of the notes are intact), or it's a batch variation. However, or whyever, it isn't behaving the way some say, I am perfectly fine with it since it adds to this quality of being with you but not on top of you.

This characteristic suits the accords very well. The rose note... that rose... oh my god that rose... it is simply perfect. I've never smelled taifi rose like this before, but this smells exactly the way it looks: a luscious, powdery, pleasantly but not saturated with color (like some red roses), soft, silky, expansive and symmetrical, pink rose. It is such a beautiful rose note that it makes me want to plant taifi rose in my garden in hopes that I could smell this every day. This accord lasts an age, with frankincense, oud, ambers and lemon sitting quietly in the background waiting for their turn. Curiously on the same time continuum the lemon is far more prominent on the blotter. Rest, relax, and wait with this perfume: you're in for a long but beautiful journey. A few hours in the perfume finally settles into its final character of amber and touches of oud, the rose quietly fading into the background. I'm at a loss for words. What few I can produce do not suffice: celestial, magical, joyful, beautiful, regal but not stuffy, powerful but not forceful, gentle and caressing. Homage is truly an olfactive masterpiece.

Homage Attar

You can't put this on and not notice the quality. It's syrupy and rich like Extraits used to be. A tiny dab creates a cloud around me. It may even fill the room. I know it's supposed to be a rose, but it just doesn't strike me as rose, for whatever reason. Too rich, too bright? Maybe too fruity? Too much incense and shadow? It's so complex; there's so much going on. The opening strikes me as pines. And then pineapples. And then roses, but a lot of other things, too. Woods and resins and incense. It's headache-strong without being piercing. I appreciate that it's a masterpiece of high-quality materials and design, but honestly I don't like to wear it.

Amouage's homage to the lovely rose dials in a surprising amount of jasmine while initiating its journey with a potent dosage of white musk that alludes a little too fervently to cleaning products. At least this was my first impression upon letting two light golden drops fall on my wrists after tearing open my package that had arrived from Oman.

After moving around and switching rooms, eventually the liquid elixir began to open up into a scent that felt quintessentially classic and, at first blush, a bit feminine. "But there's no way that I've smelled this on a woman before," I thought.

Fast forward three weeks later and Amouage's attar has grown on me. It smells clean and sexy and unlike my usual wardrobe of oil spills, rotted woods, burnt incense, and rose. In fact, Amouage's Homage smells like a departure from the flower. Is this what they were trying to effect in the naming of their fragrance, a kind of adulation of the rose by way of its omission, much like Islamic art's forbiddance of representing God in human form? It could be that I just need to train my nose to understand nuance. Or perhaps Montale's Highness Rose or Abdul Samad al Qurashi's Taif Rose have set the bar so high (and so clearly). Or maybe I got the "soapy" stuff of the red box, like some of our other reviewers...

Whatever may be the case, I've ended up liking Homage not because of its rose, or lack thereof, but because of its oud that lies nestled in the deep recesses of this attar's dry down. Warm, amber-tinged, bordering on imperceptibly cheesy, and certainly deep, the "silver oud" (whatever that means...) that forms part of Homage's base is quite nice and just funky and woody enough–but only if you inhale deeply!

Taking the advice of a reviewer on a different site, I enjoy layering Homage with Jubilation XXV. The attar's potency shines through for the first 2 hours, inflected by Jubilation XXV's berries, before it begins to bow out as the latter's musky base takes over.

On my skin HOMAGE was mostly a faint soapy rose over a cloud of frankincense with hints of neroli brightening it somewhat in the beginning. Despite a more-than-generous application, the depth and range of development I had come to expect from such a fabled attar did not materialise. What's going on, Amouage?

Surely anyone would have been forgiven for having similarly sky-high expectations. It even drove me to seek out and blind buy a decant of the red box vintage just to make sure I get the really great stuff.

Don't get me wrong. It's not bad, just that its symphony seems lightweight in the deeper bass section. There's no oud, no amber, no sandalwood to offer deeper contrast and anchor the composition. Projection is weak but lasts well as a skin scent. Had this been a blindfold test there was a mid-phase where I might even pass it off for an aldehydic Chanel which under ordinary circumstances is a big compliment. But we are talking about THE ‘legendary' Homage from Amouage; this experience was nothing if not a major letdown.

I utterly expected to swoon over Amouage's Homage. Everything I'd ever read sang its praises to the heavens. Unfortunately, for me the dry down is far less interesting that its soft and beautifully rosy and rounded opening. I would describe this base as being surprisingly crystalline and almost, but not quite "soapy." For me, this lemon and saffron base becomes the focus of the whole thing, and it irritates instead of pleases. I find it slightly thin and somewhat sharp and screechy. (You may now feel free to throw large rocks in my direction.)

Homage & Tribute, Tribute & Homage... BAWK!!!

'Bout as close to one another as a hawk to the moon Alice! I must've not been listening close enough though and tried and tried. Homage simply did not let me in.

Yada, Yada, Something about me in a dream being emperor of new clothes, smellin' like green rose and jasmine, and wondering whether I'd appreciate it any more if it were wafting off my queen and not thee.

Oh well, different strokes I guess... and it's entirely probable this old-school wet-shaver is doing it wrong.