Scorpio Rising
Eris Parfums (2022)

How many spices and aromatics can you shove into a perfume? Antoine Lie and Barbara Herman seemed determined to find out with Scorpio Rising.

The opening is a melange, and you only need to look at the notes pyramid to reach that conclusion. Black pepper, white pepper, and rainbow pepper abound with cloves, but there are much more besides. Some sun scorched heat and dry honey notes from immortelle over there, something hay like and floral from a saffron material there, and some parched woody aromatics from cinnamon here. This is very much like a spice blend you purchase from a grocer, albeit a very, very high end mix from a very high end grocer. The blend of this mix is in near perfect harmony, where you are sure you can tell the spices apart but it's nonetheless a challenge.

The highly synthetic remainder of the perfume - javanol is used to obscene proportions - somehow doesn't go down the route of being a wan and shrieking mess. Part of this is due to a very clean woody incense smoke that works to round and smooth things out. Javanol, iso e super, cashmeran, and vetiver work together to create another melange at the base, this time woody, aromatic, and a bit salty and swampy from the vetiver. The base and the final skin scent of the perfume is where things get touchy for people it seems. For some it's going to be overly synthetic and off-putting. For others, myself included, I find the base to be very synthetic, yes, but well put together and convincing. It has a quality to it that's similar to what I pointed out in Mx.; the two share a lot of structural similarities, but they also share this quality of big, broad, chunky paint strokes of materials that overlay and blend with each in ways like a watercolor painting. Sometimes the big, broad, chunky brush strokes blend in spots that seem a bit amateurish and imprecise, as compared to a finely detailed oil painting, but that also gives Scorpio Rising a personality that is unusual and compelling as well - and a personality more unusual and compelling that Mx., I would like to add. As its name implies, it is intense, gravitating and strong-willed. Yet another solid release from Eris.

Scorpio Rising seems to be where Antoine Lie picked up where he left off with CDG's Wonderwood. It has more impact, feeling more textured and dimensional, with the dominant pink pepper doing some heavy lifting to set the scent for the ultra-woodiness of the composition.

However, I am still left feeling dissatisfied when all is said and done, since all the woody aromachems lodge into my receptors and somehow give them....ennui. All twigs and no berries, really. It's not bad, and its monolithic effect yields much sillage, but it feels derivative in comparison to the lovely CDG 2 Man and even FM French Lover.

If you have ever scented Cardinal by Heeley you'll recognize the startling effect of Frankincense, Cypriol, Black and Pink Pepper assault.
The difference is that the Citric of the Incense has been smoothed out and the Nagarmotha toned down and it gently lands into it's Wood and Vetiver Signature more elegantly.
A much easier wear than the Heeley for me!

I read an article on Fragrantica by Matvey Yudov in which he explicitly called on CdG's Wonderwood as a precursor to SR, and I must admit that this was my instant connection as well.

Not unlike the common thread between Jacques Polge's Boise des Iles-inspired trio of Bois Noir, Egoïste, and No. 18, this profile is truly indicative of Antoine's aptitude for marrying spice and sandalwood, as well as incense and pepper in an astonishing, intellectual perfume. Whilst Wonderwood could be considered the Egoïste, Scorpio Rising is truly the equivalent of the fabled Bois Noir.

The complexity is nothing short of brilliant, with a logical shift through to the dry-down that yet somehow confounds the wearer in the most wonderful way - combating back and forth between hot and cold, brash and mellow, damp pepper and dry smoke. The spices push to the max, falling just below the point-of-no-return, progressively softening through the sweetened facets of immortelle in tandem with the guaiac wood. As others have stated in their reviews elsewhere, the airiness of the scent is something of a revelation in the midst of assumptions of impenetrability to prevail in an amber bed. This is a fragrance that is worn by the wearer, and not the other way around.

Spice and pepper have never been handled so robustly, yet deftly in my opinion aside from Jean-Claude Ellena (Angeliques Sous le Plouie, Epice Marine) and the late Edmond Roudnitska (Eau d'Hermes). Similarly to those aforementioned, the quality of Scorpio Rising is truly immaculate.

I feel compelled to express my appreciation for this articulation of jarring and serenity in a single vial. This is truly the magnum opus of the collection. To note: the quality of the ingredients from L'AFdM are quite apparent, and drive a true appreciation for their mission and painstaking efforts to procure the most pure and responsible products.

*Initial review based on ERIS Discovery Set won randomly via CaFleureBon giveaway - subsequently purchased full-bottle from Luckyscent, and happy to have SR in my collection*