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.