Or du Sérail
Naomi Goodsir (2014)

Overripened fruits, macerated in rum barrels. Honey-Infused tobacco, fresh from the pouch. A palette of autumn leaves, falling to the ground beneath a grey November sky.

Why do perfumers, as the shapers of our consciousness, have such radically different approaches to the path of creativity? Simple, because they are not creative persons! They are domesticated dogs to different masters!

Naomi is a designer, an original one, as designer she has her style. Her thought is not a kind of approaching to her mindset, she is not problem-focused, she's solution focused, and action oriented. This involves both analysis and imagination. In this case, she has analyzed and imagined her perfume, but was unable to make its design! For this the scent seems a way that she should go back to get to the end of the problem, to the solution: Or du Serail. It looks like a road leading to her and not to depart from her!

I don't know if there is a mood in this perfume, as the harem, or the gold, or if she was thinking about Topkapı Palace! It is impossible to understand! This is my point of you: here are working a creative person (Naomi) and a part time superhero (Batman).
Naomi (and) Batman made a selectio of raw materials, here is the yerba mate (ilex paraguariensis)! It seems mate or something like this one! The result is the same of Zebra Jungle by Kenzo (1998)… The notes of bitter mate perhaps frighten everyone, and everyone seems to want to restore the balance of the perfume with tobacco or wood, honeyed scent and a little 'of synthetic flavorings to adjust the drydown! Zebra was focused more in citrusy and woody notes, but the result is the same nonsense. What mate need? Benzoin, tonka and ginger! This could be the canvas on which to express your art, Naomi.
This is the story!

"And that concludes our presentation of the Batcave's team. Any questions? Any orders? Yes, you the chick with strange clothes!."

"So you say you know how to use the mate?”

“Of course, the bat-mate!”

“And your bat-cave is right under Bertrand Duchaufour ‘s house?"

"Yes it is, a right bat-observation!"

"And the only entrance is through a staircase connected to Bertrand Duchaufour ‘s house, right?"

"Bat-right again!"

"So... May be you are Bertrand Duchaufour, then?"

"Ah! MM! Well, that's an interesting bat-question with a pretty...HOLY SHIT SMOKE BOMB!"

Batman throws smoke bomb and runs off…

“I fear that we can forget the mate!”

You know that sweet heady smell you get when you go to a public space where people are using their massive e-cigarette (or vaping, as they call it)? This smells just slightly more pleasant than that.

If you love everything gourmand, you might like it. I don't.

Booo-riiing! A sweet syrupy bomb built on the clash between dry, dark and earthy notes of tabacco-labdanum, booze (it wouldn't be niche without the boozy note, you know...), honeyed-pollen flowers and a hyper sweet, candied, Lutensian accord of fruit and resins with a balsamic aftertaste. All sinking in sugar. Basically something like Histoires de Parfums' 1740 drowned in molasses, a clumsy galore of unrelated contrasts among dry tobacco, melted plastic and honey sweets, also fairly reminding some By Kilian's as other reviewers noted. Without all the sweetish stuff it would smell probably better, although it would just basically be a wannabe Fumerie Turque. As-is, in my opinion it's just tacky and exhausting. I don't blame Duchaufour as he obviously just runs where they call & pay him, but I think he would make a better use of his talent (which he has, undoubtedly) if he just stopped working on a dozen of scents per year – ‘cause then, these are the results...

4,5-5/10

i really like this one, not quite as much as bois d'ascese (which is more challenging and generally impressive) but enough to buy it. i really don't get'coconut' at all, but a wonderfully balanced tobacco/booze/woods richness that never cloys or flatlines. duchaufour has stretched a bit outside his incensey comfort zone yet OdS bears his trademark heavy/sheer effect, which over the course of a good 8 hour lifespan stays incredible cozy, vibrant and just perfect for this season (fall!). at times this smells very close to something slumberhouse might do if Josh Lobb went a little more 'commercial' with something like Baque or Sova. tobacco scents rarely work on me (duchaufour's havana vanille also does though) but this excellent frag really connects to my nose. yummy!

I'm a huge fan of Naomi Goodsir's line of fragrances and Bois D'Ascese have gained a holy grail status in my book pretty fast but, unfortunately, I can't say I'm digging Or Du Serail as others do.

There's an hyper-realistic fruit opening which is quite ok (mainly berries and something else kind of green/ sourish) but then, sweetness comes into play giving birth to a boozy honeyed-tobacco driven middle phase which is possibly the farhest thing to my tastes. There's an overall coconut vibe going on which gave me an instant headache. There's nothing to do, with very very few exceptions made, me and gourmands don't get along at all.

The base shows sweetness to be slightly more in check but it's a sort of been there done that kind of woody-musky-ambery thing.

It's well done et all if you like the genre but I'm afraid it's a pass for me.

In the beginning I thought it smells like a Serge Lutens' reinterpretation of By Kilian Back to Black, what with a prominent candied fruit accord threatening to overwhelm its honeyed tobacco counterpoint. Thankfully it settles down fairly quickly. The overall fragrance is warm and sweet but never toothache-inducing, the ubiquitous woody amber in the base steering it firmly away from syrupy territory. There is also a boozy-woodsy quality about it that reminds me of Lubin Idole. Scent projection is more than decent but IMO the tobacco note could do with a little more heft.

While Or du Serail does not quite fit in with my preferred style (I'm rather averse to honey notes), there is much to admire in its light-but-sure-footed take on what must surely be a tricky genre.

As a point of reference, I really enjoyed Bois d'Ascese but wasn't very taken with Cuir Velours. A friend who's quite into sweet and fruity scents had been raving about this one, so I was looking forward to taking it for a spin even though I knew it might not be to my taste. This is essentially a honeyed fruit and tobacco scent with a bit of musky cocoa peeking through. It takes some of the bigger commercial successes of what's become a bit of a stale genre and casts them in a more grown up and articulate light while still retaining a degree of playfulness.

At the outset, the honey and fruits are strong, bordering on a tad sickly, but they tame quite fast. The honey is dry–somewhat akin to Tobacco Vanille, and certainly less powdery than Back to Black. The tobacco note is exceptional–what appears to be the same kind of chord that's been popping up lately in scents such as Tom Ford's Tobacco Oud. It's somewhat dusty, hyperreal, and extremely cozy. The fruits seem to lean more toward berry than the standard cherry that this genre leans upon too often, and I think I might even be detecting some strawberry, but it's all very well rendered. Rather than juicy or tart, the fruits might be described as somewhere between stewed or candied–not overly sweet or syrupy, yet still gourmand. The whole effect is like pressing your nose into a bag of flavored tobacco.

It wears fantastically–warm, but not cloying–taking the genre to the next level. But what surprised me is that Duchaufour is behind this one as, frankly, I haven't been that moved by anything he's done for some time. This is thoughtful and expressive as opposed to predictable and trite (although I will add that the dry down is a lame, off-the-shelf amber). It's not reinventing the wheel, but it's certainly building upon what has come along before with some style of its own. Wide appeal is clearly part of this fragrance's design, but not at the expense of taste; there's no cheap gimmickry or paraphrasing of what came before. Although it's not exactly to my taste, it is something I would wear on occasion during the colder months. For fans of tobacco-centric perfumes, honeyed fruit scents, and Naomi Goodsir's other releases, this should be on your radar.

Or du Serail opens with an extremely natural smelling rum-laced pineapple and coconut fruity duo, strongly resembling a pina colada. As the composition moves to its early heart, the booze-laced fruit begins to dissipate as deep, just slightly sweet pipe tobacco takes on the starring role. During the late dry-down the composition turns to vague burnt woods with traces of the fruity booze-laced pipe tobacco still detectable through the finish and just slightly powdery vanilla joining in late. Projection is average and longevity above average at 9-10 hours on skin.

Or du Serail is really a composition of what might have been. The pina colada-like open is simply amazingly delicious; and when the pipe tobacco joins in during the early heart the combination is not only at once innovative, but also incredible smelling. If the momentum could have been maintained Or du Serail would easily be able to work its way into conversations for many "best of" lists this year. Unfortunately, the late dry-down is a big disappointment. The burnt vague woody aspect is near-certainly the work of norlimbanol, and its use just ruins such natural smelling top and mid sections. Bertrand Duchaufour deserves some credit for keeping the burnt woods from completely quashing the tobacco and boozy fruit, but they still dominate and distract from the composition's message no matter how hard one tries to avoid them, with even the vanilla at the very end coming a bit too late to soften the blow. The bottom line is the $185 per 50ml bottle Or du Serail shows tremendous promise early, but lets one down with its disappointing finish, still earning a "very good" rating of 3.5 stars out of 5, but it would have been much higher if only the burnt woods could have been extinguished. Recommended with reservation.