Hope
Eau de Parfum, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle (2024)

Hope is equal parts oud and woody-amber that has some flinty, almost mineral aspect right at the start. It is dense and thick, but doesn't reveal much nuance or complexity. It changes little over the course of a few hours, besides the spicy edge toning down and it becoming more rounded. I find sillage and duration to be quite adequate as one would expect here.

I am quite perplexed (and disappointed) by this new release, as I find Hope quite unremarkable compared to 10-15 of the "upscale Western ouds", and that includes The Moon from Malle. I do not know if it is just my skin chemistry, but Hope is just a monolithic block of a woody scent that smells more like an experiment than an actual perfume.


2.5/5

Of the Desert Gems collection, Hope is the one that is the least exciting. It is certainly very, deeply pleasant, but it doesn't quite tug at the heart strings as you would expect (or hope, pun intended?) for a perfume with its mandate and description. The juniper and pepper at the top add a dryness and a "snap" to the oncoming smokey oud accord that ushers in a feeling of austere elegance. This is the first sign that Hope is probably not going to be what we, or at least I, expected.

Oud is a funky animal. It is what it is and best of luck to anyone who tries to wrestle it into submission. The opening tells us Ropion intends to try to wrestle with this behemoth, and we see an initial sign that he is very likely to succeed since the juniper and pepper seem to make the oud stand-up straight, tuck in its shirt, comb its hair, chin up, and keep a stoic expression on its face. Prim and proper, not a funky wild animal, seems to be the direction this is going. Sure enough, as the juniper and pepper disappear, oud keeps to the mandate of good behavior. The funky turned-fruit and barnyard-animalic facets are still there, but neatly buttoned-up and dressed-up. The smoke is dark and thick, but it's not sticky like wood smoke, acting more like incense weaving its tendrils through the air, always diffusive and elegant. Approaching the final dry down I get an answer to one other question I had pondered since the beginning, which is the volume the different notes of this perfume were going to choose to speak at: at no point in the opening, heart, or base do the notes ever go above quiet conversation levels. It's a warm and slightly humid day here in a NorCal - typically a recipe for a big oud perfume to start screaming at you and everyone else around you, but not Hope. It is wonderfully well-behaved and restrained in this weather. In the last dry down, the leathers and balsams stick to the mandate, and make for a very seamless, elegant, and well-executed transition.

In final thoughts, I have two. The first is that I believe I get how the perfume follows the creative vision: hope doesn't actually exist, it's a feeling, either collective or individual, and as a feeling it is meant to have a degree of confidence but nonetheless feel a bit difficult to get your hands around; there is a fleeting aspect to it. In this sense, Hope succeeds exceptionally well. It is strong, but not overly so, confident without being brash, but a bit fleeting and hard to hold on to, just like hope. However, in its quiet simplicity and fleetingness it lacks a feeling of specialness. Hope always feels like a special feeling, not something someone is aloof towards. At no point wearing Hope do I feel special, at no point does it ever really strike me, and for what is being charged for it you would absolutely expect that it damn well should. I like it enough to want to add it to my collection, no doubt. It's a beautiful oud. So, on the wishlist it goes. Will I ever buy it? No, I will not be spending the retail money on this. Perhaps I should hope someone will gift me a bottle. That would be special.

I didn't really care for this one. There was a fleeting glimpse of oud at first, but it was largely lost in that "woody amber" aquatic base that I hate. Given a few minutes, I was reminded of Tom Ford's Tuscan Leather, but over that cheap base.

I feel like just about every cheap middle eastern perfume brand I've tried has had something like this - a copy of Tuscan Leather over a cheap base claiming to be oud. The whole point of those is that they're inexpensive. This, unfortunately, is expensive, so I don't see the point.

I don’t smell a lot of oud, though it’s there. This feels like a thinner Promise with Oud (Philippine, I’m told) but softer, smokier and a bit like something CdG did with Hinoki. I smell more rose on my skin, though it isn’t listed. Not as prominent as Promise, but this is the quietest of the Desert Gems. Same as how The Moon reminds me of Amber Mystique, you can see Estée Lauder’s fingerprints on this perfume. The only Desert Gems that really grabs me is The Night, and it’s extremely dense. He struck gold with Portrait. I’m curious to see which of the line survives Frederic’s retirement. I bet some will go.