OMNIA PROFUMO AMBRA: Back before politicians were lining up to take credit for inventing the internet, there was an interview in Rolling Stone with Jim Kerr, the lead singer for Simple Minds. The Breakfast Club had just recently opened in theaters and the band’s song from the soundtrack (“Don’t You Forget About Me”) was gearing up to be a huge hit in the United States.
The interviewer asked Mr. Kerr what he thought of the success of the song, since it hadn’t been written by the band (it was, instead, written and produced by David Foster, a kind of go-to uber-producer of the 80′s, especially for soundtrack work) and was a lot more “pop” than anything that had been included on the band’s previous albums. I’m paraphrasing the response, but I remember Jim Kerr said something like, “If you took all of our songs and put them in a blender, it would sound like ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’, so David Foster captured the essence of the band even though the song doesn’t sound exactly like a Simple Minds record.”
This is a round-about way for me to say that if you took all the ambers of the world and put them in a blender, the result would likely be something very similar to Omnia Ambra, and I would have no problem with steering an amber fragrance neophyte in the direction of Omnia Ambra since it covers all the requisite amber bases so neatly: sweet, woodsy, earthy, golden.
March at Perfume Posse writes: “This is one of the few ambers I can wear and wear happily.” Official listed scent notes are: orange, bergamot, geranium, incense, lavender, patchouli, vanilla, labdanum, opoponax and amber. The geranium and lavender are nice touches, as they pull the fragrance back from the brink of being too sweet and steer it into just right.
The bottle is nice, too, and the price isn’t bad — $135.00 for 125ml. Compare that to $105.00 for a 50ml bottle of Tauer Perfumes Incense Rose, or $265.00 for 50ml of The Party in Manhattan and Omnia Ambra starts to look like a total bargain.
Speaking of sweet, just right and total somethings:
OMNIA PROFUMO GRANATO: Lucky Scent describes Grenato as “the fun-loving friend who could always convince you to cut class even though you knew better,” and while the copy writers at Lucky Scent often engage in hyperbole so extreme it would make a North Korean dictator blush, there actually is a kind of devil-may-care quality to this fragrance — a teasing fan-dance of a spiced floral that piques the interest right up until it collapses into the same sour, hawthorn mess that makes wearing Serge Lutens’ Miel de Bois so unpleasant.
Thumbs down.
{ 4 comments }
I love this review. It has a Rolling Stone reference, 80′s music, compelling fragrance at a reasonable-ish price, opoponax (which I just like saying) and the term “fan dance.”
Of course, it once again reviles Miel de Bois, so there’s still that dramatic tension that keeps me coming back for more.
Reviling Miel de Bois was just the bait. Now you’re trapped in my 80′s hall of mirrors, never to escape!
It’s a good thing we read Kerr’s interview. Because if that little Scotsman told us that in person, it would sound like: “Aff ye tuke ull oar sungs an poot ‘em inna blanderr, it woode sund lak ‘doon ye farget aboot meh’“
Uh railey shoodnt larf uht ill yer dom jooks, bet uh coont hailp meself.