I was wary of crossing another Opoponax bridge after my near-fatal run-in with Les Nereides Imperial Opoponax (which, by the way, I sent off to my sixteen year old niece, who squealed with delight upon receiving it and is most likely, as I type this, cruising down the halls of her high-school trailing an odiferous wake of Nilla Wafer splendipitude), and I haven’t had the best of luck so far with the Ava Luxe brand, but I woke up this morning in a determined mood (after having battled an army of zombies all night in my dreams — zombies that, curiously, smelled like Dior Miss Cherie!) and when I opened my sample box and saw a vial of Ava Luxe Opoponax Intense, I knew I’d found my calling for the day.
I had steeled myself for a blast of jaw-clenching sweetness, but that’s not what happened; instead, I was met by a richly layered incense that starts off with a dusting of a la orange (hesperides) but ends up smoky, dusky, a little amberish and pretty much exactly what I’d always assumed an incense fragrance should smell like.
While not as blatantly arty as a Montale or a Serge Lutens, Ava Luxe’s Opoponax Intense still manages to hit the right creative balance without going over the top — and for a fragrance with an ingredients list that reads like a Who’s Who of nose-walloping resins (opoponax, amber, benzoin, myrrhe, balsam and frankincense), that’s no small feat.
BTW: the BF just walked through the door, looked around and said, “Did you get some incense? What smells like incense?” So . . . yeah, there you go.
***Note: Ava Luxe also has a fragrance called, simply, Opoponax. Opoponax Intense is said to be a darker, richer version of the original Opoponax.
UPDATE: 09/23/08
I ordered a small bottle of the Opoponax Intense to see if repeated exposure would match up to the sample experience. As fate would have it, not one hour after receiving the package today, I dropped the bottle and it broke on my bathroom floor, spilling its contents across the tiles.
Needless to say, I’m suffering a rather fragrant bathroom area at the moment, despite my best mopping up efforts. Thank god the BF is gone on a business trip — he’d be raising holy hell.
I did manage one generous spray on my arm before I dropped the bottle, and it smells similar to what I remember the sample smelling like, though a bit more harsh and high-pitched at the opening (variance in fragrance batches is more likely to happen with smaller fragrance companies, especially should they be using a larger percentage of natural essences in the formula).
It’s a very potent incense scent — not quite as pleasant at the front-end as I remembered, but the drydown is still decent. I’m not so into it that I’ll be ordering another bottle, however.
