Mohur
Neela Vermeire (2011)

To me Mohur is a very pretty scent. The delicious quince top note lingers throughout the whole scent journey without being cloyingly sweet as it is well supported by its floral and woodsy frame. Not a complicated scent either that would change over the day on my skin but I just like it's linear performance.

The beginning of the rich sweet aromatic notes, the quiet gentle sandalwood, cedar end, the middle of iris, rose, almond holding hands jumping waltz, Mohur is like flying in flowers in colorful saris. There is nothing artificially sweet in Mohur. on the contrary, there is something bittersweet, and i mean this more emotionally than olfactory. I think about movies based on Jane Austen's novels.

If this is an "oriental" fragrance, it is certainly not rich or opulent like Guerlain's vanilla overdosed orientals. Nor is it spicy and resinous like Serge Lutens' classics. This is a light and highly wearable fragrance that is versatile and would do well in many situations.

ClaireV pretty much nailed it in her review, so I'm not going to reinvent this sublime wheel.

I recently was given a sample of this and got to know this beauty all over again, and I realized I did need this in my wardrobe. It is so beautiful and different from really, anything I own - even other creations by the NV house.

Tree of Hope, Keep Firm BY Frida Kahlo 1946

You know those cooking shows where people compete to make, say, the best gourmet hamburger, and they add a bunch of truffle and gold flakes and, in the end, they've made a really expensive hamburger, but it's still a hamburger? That's kind of how I feel about Mohur. All told, it's a fruitchouli. An expensive fruitchouli, but still a fruitchouli.

So what does it smell like? Well, it's that typical mix of rose and patchouli and berries that smells kind of like fancy perfumed jam. It's got aldehydes on top, so it calls to mind Feminite du Bois, and hints of rubber and woods, as well as a big shot of ionone violets, so it's bright on top and smells of suede in the drydown.

In my personal opinion, the best of this genre is CDG2, which uses inky vetiver and rubber to take the fruitchouli out of the mainstream and into the realm of high art. Meanwhile, Mohur seems to be gunning more for Portrait Of A Lady, confident that expensive ingredients will make it a collector's favorite (which seems to be working - people in the know really seem to love Mohur).

I guess I'm just jaded and really tired of this particular perfume cliche, but any perfume I can easily compare to Feminite du Bois, CDG2, and POAL must deserve a thumbs up, so that's what I'm giving it.

A delicate, milky, almondy, slightly vegetal rose, with a whisper of violet, this is a very pretty fragrance. If it were a colour it would be the pale pink of sugared almonds. Two hours in, the rose is sweeter & almost edible, like a rose-scented sugar icing. Another three hours later, it has more of a fruity, jammy quality, before sinking into a warm & smooth vanilla base, & fading to a skin scent. Twelve hours in it's just detectable.
Considering the lengthy notes list for this one, it comes off as quite a sweet & simple fragrance, but its subtle delicacy prevents it from straying into cloyingly sweet territory. Nice, if possibly a little too subtle for my taste.

I appreciate Mohur more for what it is not than for what it is. It is not, despite being comprised of 11% pure rose oils, a massive oriental rose fragrance (I love that category, but it's been done to death). Despite containing oud, it is not your run-of-the-mill rose oud accord (ditto). It is not, despite the novel-length note list of every Indian dessert ingredient ever, a heavy Indian dessert-like fragrance weighed down with vanilla, rosewater, saffron, and spices. Mohur takes every expectation you have and turns it upside down.

What Mohur is, in fact, is a handful of red rose petals strewn on the surface of a glass of cold almond milk into which have been stirred grated carrots, black pepper, and cardamom. There is a cold restraint to the fragrance that elevates it from mere prettiness to true beauty.

Not one of my four samplings were the same as the other – it is a strange, mercurial perfume that beats to its own drum. The rich abundance of notes seem to strain against a muslin cloth, drip feeding into the fragrance you experience on the skin and seemingly on a time-release mechanism, allowing the wearer to enjoy a progression of note impressions in a leisurely manner. There is light and air between the many notes. Thus Mohur achieves a remarkable balance between richness and clarity.

Straight onto the skin, I smell an austere oud note and a sourish leather, underpinned by a green cardamom note. Behind the sharpness of the opening accord, I sense some fruit and rose petals beginning to take shape. At first, the rose smells like the dried rose petals stirred into black tea that you can buy from Marriage Freres. Then, oddly, for about half an hour, I can't smell a thing – nada, zip, niente. It's as if all the opening notes have sharply withdrawn, leaving only a haunting impression of something enticingly boozy and sour on the skin.

Then, without warning, the fragrance seems to rev back up again, like a rusty old engine! Now underpinning the tart fruitiness of the emerging rose is the fuzzy, almost raw feel of a green almond freshly peeled from its shell and pressed to release its fragrant milk. The red rose petals lose their tea-like dryness and bloom into wet, jammy rose petals plucked straight from the flower. The sticky rose combines with the milky almond notes to produce something almost edible in its deliciousness. But the jam and milk notes are spread out on a foundation of earth and roots (carrots), powdery chalk (benzoin), and wood (sandalwood and cedar), so it never quite tilts into yummy gourmand territory.

The intense (but filtered, shaded) whirligig of spice and rose notes never really settles, even in the base – it just keeps on shifting through a kaleidoscope of impressions. At times, the base reads to me like a dusty, rose-tinted talcum powder – the combination of now dried rose petals and benzoin. In other tests, I got a full-throated, creamy sandalwood that tilted its sweetness towards a weighty vanilla crème, again, nuanced by rose but never dominated by it.

Mohur is simply beautiful – elegant but not staid, and full of little twists and turns that captures my interest in every wearing. Does it make my wish list? Yes, and I would buy it immediately if it were not for the times that I pick up on the baby talc accord in the dry down – it is a note that I can appreciate but do not love. I would like, however, to spend more time getting to know Mohur and her little twists and turns, so I might invest in the Neela Vermeire discovery set.

A silk embroidered veil holds back the intensity of light in this dusty landscape. Yes, Mohur Extrait is built around rose and boy what a rose it is, somewhere between fresh dewy green garden rose and a rich oriental jammy red rose, it's both comforting and refreshing simultaneously.

But what to me really lifts this composition is what's juxtaposed over the rose, that veil, the spices, cardamom, sandalwood and oud. They act as a Gaussian filter over the composition, softening and romanticising the setting and adding context to the Indian story.

I love this stuff, it's one of those perfumes that transports you from the humdrum of everyday life to somewhere more spiritual, somewhere to reflect and be thankful for the goodness in life. On a side note, I'm a self confessed Duchaufour fanatic, and really this for me is the only thing that comes to exceeding Timbuktu.

This review is for the Extrait, but equally can be taken for the EdP which is completely similar except for lower strength.

Silky soft like an angelic caress. Scrap the note list which may lead you to expect some indigestible over-spiced and over-rich concoction – you couldn't be further from the truth. Imagine a deep, soft, taif style rose interpreted in a velvety style that feels like a second skin and mellowed further by cardamom-infused milk and powdery accents and you're getting there. ‘Do no harm' seems to be Mohur's motto; it's gentle, it's comforting, its battery of butcher elements whispering in a huddle in another room. The evolution is towards a deeply satisfying soapy creaminess, with the rose much receded.
It lingers gently through the day and is my go to perfume for noisy evenings with drink involved – its quiet unwavering voice offers the still centre I crave on such occasions.

A fairy-tale fragrance.Either decadent and sophisticated fragrance Mohur, sublime and fairy-tale  as a "Fairy with Turquoise Hair",  a bit art-nuveau or liberty style its ambience (with a touch of vintage parisian), an enchanting aroma which discloses in my moonshiny imagination the nocturnal magic Margarita's flight over the sleepy suburbia. The aroma is intensely floral, spicy/yummy, mysterious and leathery/balmy.  You can detect by soon the floral/spicy leather with the peppery intervention which is active (and effective) for sure but undoubtedly well modulated. The leather suede is fruity floral, i would say "plums/raspberries/apricot like" (i'm not sure all these fruits are present for real, probably it's an illusion or more possibly there is a secret minimal fruity insertion in the blend) and with a violet temperament. Overall in the initial  phase indeed i detect a plain Feminite du Bois's  olfactory similarity (with just some Arquiste Anima dulcis and Arabie's facets). Carrots, a touch of orange, cinnamon and cardamom imprint a spicy earthy background to the smooth leather along the top notes transition (and since the beginning i detect a minimal touch of botanic aromatic elusive freshness) while the ambrette (in connection with resins and vanilla) becomes soon intense, almost subsiding the leather (as the juice goes soon becoming more properly balmy than leathery). You can detect by soon the patchouli, the almond paste (which probably gives the illusion about the apricot influence), flavouring balsams and suede. The heart is highly romantic with its floral bouquet whereof i detect mostly violet and iris. The dry down is all spicy balsams, evanescent suede, tonka beans and gassy woodiness with a sort of "cuminic modulated effect". I prefer far better this one on Bombay Bling and consider Mohur a great sophisticated contemporary spicy/fruity/floral chypre with high levels of mystery and romanticism. Really irresistible and masterfully appointed. This fragrance jumps immediately on the highest stages of my favorite feminine recent concoctions.Pros: Sublime and slightly vintage floral bouquet from the forest.Cons: Any in particular."

The rise of the roseTruly surprised me as I bought this for my Mum and now wear it myself. Notes on Mohur. http://thefragrantman.com/2013/05/12/??????-????-????-????-mohur-mothers-day-2013/Pros: A composition of harmony and delightCons: I didn't mean to love you..."

This is a gorgeous rose, saffron, and incense scent. It is happy and also peaceful, welcoming and warm and also exotic and sensual. This is a spring rose, and the sexuality is in the saffron and spices. I smell cumin and black pepper, and the saffron segues into the heart of a sweet and almost lemony rose scent. This is discreet but at the same time the sillage has a way of making itself known, esp. to the wearer. I see a connection to Paestum Rose, but less wood in the drydown and less incense. This is a beautiful fragrance and if you love rose it is definitely one to try. A fantastic addition to the floral oriental category.