Nefertum
TRNP (Teone Reinthal Natural Perfume) (2019)

PStoller was very kind and sent me a sample of Nefertum. Thanks so much PStoller!

I was interested based on a comment made by Proust Madeline quite a while ago, but then I sat on the idea of ordering a bottle of Nefertum and now it's no longer available...bummer.

So, upon my first wearing I can see that I do indeed love this perfume. I love Teone's Blue Lotus and I smell a touch of that in Nefertum, but it is also filled with amazing notes of cardamom, cinnamon, clove, frankincense, myrrh, and mysore sandalwood...oh my...this smells divine and I could definitely wear the heck out of a bottle. Hopefully she'll bring this one back at some point and I can snag some. This would be a head turner for me if I smelled it on someone else. Beautiful spices, florals, and sandalwood wafting up to my smiling nose, LOL. Two thumbs way up for Nefertum!

So, about 30 minutes in and the sandalwood is jumping off my skin. There is a slight sweetness to Nefertum, but it's well balanced by the frankincense and other spices. I noticed that the sandalwood note in this fragrance reminds me of the sandalwood note in ALD's Santal Galore, which surprised me. There's a slightly smokey aspect to the sandalwood note in both of them. I assume this mysore sandalwood smells a touch smokey because of the combination of other notes involved in the composition as well. I really like it.

The name is a reference to the blue lotus featured here as a note. Nefertum was an Egyptian god embodied in the blue lotus. The TRNP page on Nefertum describes a scene of priestesses leading ritual worship of the goddess Sekhmet, mother of Nefertum (and calls Nefertum a “Hathorian elixir” after Hathor, mother of Sekhmet), which could be why this got categorized as a feminine in the BN directory. But there'’s nothing specifically feminine about Nefertum the fragrance, much less the god.

I'’m not sure if I'’d recognize the scent of blue lotus if it gave me a Father’'s Day card, but that’'s of little consequence. The array of spices, rose, incense, and Mysore sandalwood would likely win me over even if the principle note were durian. It'’s an “oriental” without the amber, and that’'s damn near the axle in my wheelhouse.

Something that might be blue lotus (since I didn’t recognize it as any of the other notes) did finally arise, and it’s quite wonderful. Nefertum is one of my favorite TRNPs thus far.