Süleyman Le Magnifique
Fort and Manlé (2017)

An enticingly harmonious creation undermined by the by now usual demureness of this house's offerings. Süleyman le Magnifique is one of those compositions that opens in full-flow, the entire assembled orchestra of notes playing in unison. And very pleasing they are indeed – there's a fully-rounded resinous oriental perfume in here with well-dosed floral sweetness to it, crossed with a more traditional ‘masculine' spicy-woody, all layered over with a generous glug of iris-like creamy smoothness. This definitely feels like a durbar perfume, oozing refined opulence and I would love it madly were it not for its introverted nature. I want it to rise up to my nostrils and bliss me out – instead it sits close to my skin and leads to undignified t-shirt-neckline-over-nose moments in an effort to channel the perfume up from my chest.
In fairness, it does come around after a while and make its presence known, but by then much of the iris has vanished. What is left is still beautiful but also surprisingly reminiscent of Caron's excellent Parfum Sacré. As the latter is one of my all-time favourites, I'm not really tempted by Süleyman le Magnifique's peekaboo.