Imperial Opoponax by Les Nereides is a sugary Nilla Wafer of a perfume. Its namesake ingredient, Opopanax chironium (also known as “sweet myrrhe”), is an incense gum that grows best in hot Middle Eastern and Mediterranean climates, and it’s been used as an aromatic resin for centuries — it’s allegedly known as “the noblest of incense gums” which is undoubtedly where the “imperial” part of Imperial Opoponax comes from.
Other included ingredients: amber (sweet!), vanilla (sweet!), benzoin (sweet!), sandalwood (sweet!) and citrus (sweet!) — so you can see that this is going to be one cavity-inducing ride from the start. If you’re a huge fan of sugary vanilla fragrances, you’ll fall madly in love with this stuff, cuz it’s, like, a desert tray for your nose.
Imperial Opoponax can be considered a “linear” fragrance — meaning that it doesn’t start off in one state and cross several borders to wind up in a completely different olfactory location. What you smell when you spray this on is pretty darn close to what you get the entire time you’re wearing it, since it’s composed mostly of base notes (ingredients that comprise the foundation of a fragrance).
For me, it’s a most definite No on the Would I Wear It scale, but I can easily see how something this cookie-aisle pleasant might ring a lot of bells across the landscape. I think I’m going to send the bottle to my sixteen year old niece — the one that wears slouchy jeans, plays the cello and burns incense in her bedroom (you know, the same bedroom where the walls are covered in Orlando Bloom posters).
How could she not fail to attract attention while walking through the halls of her high school smelling like a plate of vanilla cookies? Everyone around her will be drooling, literally. She’ll love it.
