Courage
One Seed (2009)

Courage opens with a very strong dull orange, coupling with slightly sweet amber rising from the base and a grouping of mild supporting culinary herbs. As the fragrance enters the early heart phase the culinary herbs disappear, while the orange and amber tandem remains, now joined by a supporting slightly indolic jasmine floral with an animalic musky undertone. The fragrance remains relatively linear from the early heart through the late dry-down as the musk and amber dominate late but the orange never completely dissipates. Projection is below average to average and longevity is well-below average at about 4 hours on skin.

Courage is an all-natural blend from a great relatively unknown perfume house from Australia called One Seed. When first applied, the fragrance conjures up glancing similarities to many of the amazing releases from Angelo Orazio Pregoni of O'driu with their brilliant use of culinary herbs. Courage takes a different path shortly after the open and is definitely unique, as it takes the orange and amber combination sans herbs and adds a musky underlying vibe to it even though the composition doesn't contain any real musk (as it is 100% botanical). The musky qualities are most likely the result of the indolic slightly animalic florals used. At this point the composition channels some of the best qualities of the great perfumer Vero Kern and her super-fine Onda Extrait in particular. If I could change anything about Courage it would only be to increase its performance aspects, as while the composition is plenty strong it softens and goes away all too quickly. While it hangs around though, this absolutely stellar 4 to 4.5 star out of 5 composition is a hidden gem that Aussie's need to share with the rest of the world as most of us have no idea what we are missing. I know the house of One Seed just got on this reviewer and buyer's radar in a very big way!