Quick Sniffs: Indult Manakara, Maison Berdoues Ambre Oliban, Biehl Parfumkunstwerke MB03, Farmacia SS Annunziata dal 1561 Aurora

INDULT MANAKARA: Manakara is pure candy, distinguishing itself by emitting one of the sweetest, smoothest dessert scents I’ve ever encountered. I’m not so certain that it’s worth its very high price tag, but if you, or someone you know, loves the smell of crème brûlée, you can’t miss with Manakara.

Starts candy sweet and finishes warm gourmand tasty, yet with not a huge amount in the way of development or progression (though a lovely woodsy-rose pops up in the base about 4 hours in, followed by a fruity lychee). I thought I might dislike Manakara because of its extremely high sugar content, but instead I feel like I’m next in line at an all-day Willy Wonka buffet.

Will stop small children, toy poodles and hungry lumberjacks dead in their tracks. If you’re an elementary school teacher, doggy groomer or Las Vegas stripper (I know! What a strange trinity that makes), Manakara will be just about the most perfect scent you could possibly douse yourself with.

***Note: This stuff lasts for frickin’ ever! 7 hours later and I’m about ready to chop my fruity sweet smelling hand off. I wish there were a way to test perfumes properly without having to actually spray them on my skin . . . oh wait! Isn’t that called a Personal Assistant? I could swear I have one of those laying around somewhere . . .

***Note 2: After 10 hours, I finally scrubbed this power-driving sh*t off. F***ing hell — there’s scent longevity and then there’s just outright harassment.

MAISON BERDOUES AMBRE OLIBAN: Starts off smelling like an old can of Aqua Net from the ’70s, then settles into a deeper, ambered groove as time passes (it took about 45 minutes on my skin for the hairspray quality to dissipate).

Once it hits its stride, Ambre Oliban is a surprising, medium-bodied amber with a pleasant incense kick delivered by the olibanum in its mix, but the chief distinction of Ambre Oliban has to be its price point: a 100ml (3.3 ounce) bottle of Ambre Oliban sells on Amazon for $32.00, a veritable steal when you compare it to Indult Manakara, which sells on Lucky Scent for $250.00 for a bottle half that size.

My general experience has been that fragrances in the price range of the Maison Berdoues line are not very good — too full of cheap and thin synthetics to pack any kind of genuine pleasure into the bottle, but Ambre Oliban is an exception to this rule and I recommend it to anyone looking for an easily wearable incense-amber that won’t empty your bank account. It has a long lifespan on the skin, too.

Just keep in mind that it does exhibit that initial hairspray note, but you can outlast it if you’re the patient type.

BIEHL PARFUMKUNSTWERKE MB03: You know, I keep reading the descriptions of perfumer Mark Buxton’s MB03 as “incense” and yet, I don’t really get incense out of MB03. A little bit, maybe — but defining MB03 as an “incense fragrance” seems somewhat a stretch, especially when the green, vegetal notes start cropping up and muddling the scenery.

Supposedly contains: Roman chamomile, red pepper, elemi, cistus (labdanum), cashmere wood, styrax (benzoin), amber, incense, sandalwood and patchouli. I do smell the chamomile and red pepper, plus a dose of that sour-piss elemi scent (think Serge Lutens Miel de Bois — *shudder*), but the richer base notes are mostly missing in action.

And it just gets more pissy and vegetal as time goes on. Over six seven eight nine hours later and there isn’t a speck of incense, sandalwood, patchouli or amber in this thing. I feel like I’ve been had (not to mention glommed onto like some olfactory version of a lamprey eel that would rather rasp through my skin than let go . . . longevity isn’t always a desirable quality; see: Indult Manakara). I tested Buxton’s MB02 a couple of months back, and had the same problem: sounds great on paper, but performs as a rather skinny, hollow-eyed mess in real life.

Biehl Parfumkunstwerke’s PC02 from perfumer Patricia Choux is a huge oriental blast of sweet honey and potent florals, so the weak execution with MB03 is the fault of Mark Buxton and not Biehl Parfumkunstwerke. And I hear Mark Buxton has now come out with a fragrance line all his own. Color me unenthused.

FARMACIA SS ANNUNZIATA dal 1561 AURORA: A blend of gourmet spices sprinkled over a base of patchouli, Aurora is as odd as the rest of the Farmacia Annunziata line that I’ve tested so far. Unlike with their Ambra Nera and Patchouly Indonesiano, however, I didn’t enjoy my ride as much on the Farmacia Aurora train.

It’s a fine line in perfumery between incorporating spices into the mix and accidentally knocking the entire spice cabinet into the perfume vat and hoping no one notices the mistake. Aurora is the latter, and it reeks of a list of items that should flavor a sauce or pump up a muffin mix — especially while the potent patchouli in the base is in its opening green-leaf stage.

Once the patchouli mellows out, however (and that takes about an hour and a half to two hours), the fragrance takes a turn for the better and all those spices start working with the composition as a whole instead of against it. The drydown is then woodsy soft and enjoyable, with a bit of warm cinnamon and nutmeg layered across the top, but overall — not my thing.

Wrap it up: Maison Berdoues Ambre Oliban — pleasant amber-incense, with a price that’s twice as nice; Indult Manakara — diabetic coma inducing, but you’ll die with a smile on your face; Farmacia SS Annunziata Aurora — fair to middling, with too much kitchen spice cabinet in the mix; Biehl Parfumkunstwerke MB03 — you’re kidding, right?

OFF TOPIC (and later in the evening):

Went out for a walk in the Dallas Victory Park neighborhood and this is what I saw:

Sign of the times.