Oriental Flowers
Montale (2008)

To me it's definitely a "Beauty and the Beast" scent. It has a terrible start and a beautiful sensual heart. It starts with a very strong and rather unpleasant aromatic note reminding me a celery suffering from profuse transpiration. My impression of the smell is as if this celery note clamorously runs in front of the scent and swings with an ax like wild prehistoric man. But if you let him to loose his energy and fall down, you can get a path to the heart of the scent combining classic rose and patchouli combination. Very sensual, ultimately feminine and thrilling. It smells like a romantic music played on cello. Love that a lot. I sprayed the perfume once on my wrist, but it stayed about three days on my sleeve. The scent is not subtle, but rather loud and dramatic. The beginning is terrible, but the end is beautiful and long lasting.

"Oriental Flowers" is exactly how l would describe this scent. There are flowers, & an oriental kind of spiciness. lt's classic, elegant & voluptuous, but on my skin there's a stale note that overpowers the florals, & rather puts me off. The peru balsam warms & sweetens the drydown & it becomes a bit sexier, but this kind of old-fashioned perfume isn't really me. lt's definitely a winter fragrance, & could possibly work well on a man.

The first time I tested this I thought that I had a mislabeled sample – the fragrance was strong, aggressively aromatic and extremely cloying. I thought it smelled rather familiar but I didn't stop to delve into my memory because I wanted rid of it. I immediately washed it off and dropped the sample in the back of the drawer. Four months later I retried it and found that my reaction had halved… it was still strongly aromatic and cloying but nowhere near as annoying as the first time I tested it… and it was even more familiar. I have gone through two sample vials of this trying with various results, I wondered what was in its nature that made it so variable and random. Subsequently I have found that there is nothing inscrutable about this scent, it is just a loud, saccharine, massively floral, medicinally aromatic scent. Except for its extraordinary potency, its opening could be considered rather traditional with its rose, jasmine, and bergamot. From its heart it throws a powerful ylang-ylang and the Peru balsam base comes across in abundance and constitutes almost my entire continuing memory of the fragrance. I think I know someone who wears this. How many times have I walked into the Xerox room and said, “Oh, Allison was just here…” only to be told that she had been there an hour before. Oriental Flowers is that kind of scent.

This is gorgeous and I haven't smelled anything like it so far (and I have a LOT of samples being a fragrance addict!). I won't try to pick out the notes, not good at it, but I will try to describe. This is strong, not for the faint of heart, overtly feminine and rich. I suppose it is floral, yet it is something more and not spicy either. There is a dryness to it (powder perhaps?) It has absolutely phenomenal lasting power even after 12 hours and my skin usually kills scents. The drydown is amazing, very complex and soft, but tenacious. I don't reach for this everyday, but can't imagine not having it. Liked it enough to buy the 100 ml. Layers nicely with Patchouli Leaves. Takes it from ethereal to more earthly. Just love Montale and own 5 100 mls of their scents and several large decants. The only other perfumer I like that much is Dior and mostly for their classics. Oriental Flowers is not getting much attention and that is a pity because in my opinion, it is a masterpiece and very unique. I wish I could give it 10 Thumbs WAY up. (I think I just may have) sneaky!