Phoenicia
Heeley (2014)

Highest recommendation from me for Phoenicia. This is incredibly well made as well as incredibly refined. I'm coming to love the house of Heeley more with each fragrance I try. Phoenicia is a must have for me. Rich, incense laden, woody, opulent, with a hint of dried fruit, but in a classy, understated way. I absolutely love this fragrance and will purchase it as soon as I may. James Heeley is an excellent perfumer folks...

I just tried a sample of this. The first opening is bright and very brittle and sweet but within a flash takes over. This doesn't last very long, maybe 15 minutes and then we're back to the opening which lasts for the duration of the scent. There is a slight incense note but to me it seems very faint. The unique fruit top overshadows the scent. I found it a bit feminine for me. I thought it would be a stronger incense with some sweetness to it but I didn't find that. The sillage is strong. The longevity is good. Stays off the skin until it finally settles down about 4-5 hours.
I wouldn't buy it again. I gave the sample to my daughter.

With its notes of dates and incense, along with the cedar of the creaking masts of Phoenician merchant ships, this scent has the Levant written all over it. With its lack of floral notes and heavy emphasis on woods, leather and oud, Phoenicia is a dry, yet rich masculine scent, evocative of ancients times and the Mediterranean's port towns. The oud, which is extremely dry, smells strongly to me of creosote–not necessarily in a bad way. It, too, suggests ship yards and commerce. Creosote is, after all, the ancient Greek name for meat preserver. The oud also creates a slight smell of sweaty humanity (Are there galley slaves rowing this boat?). A very good offering from one of my favorite houses and a great example of how oud can be used very successfully and a team player and not the star of the show.

This smells incredibly grand. Leather, oud, incense, all wrapped up by subtle oud and sensual Gaiac wood, labdanum and sandalwood. It's fantastic when a perfume pyramid comes alive and lives up to expectations in this way.

Quality ingredients and fantastic performance make it worth the price tag. I paid $295 Australian dollars which is about the same as a Tom Ford 50ml.

The sprayer on this bottle is quite generous and works well. I am normally an over-applier but 3 spritzes of this had me set for the day. Expect at least 150 applications from a 50ml bottle and lots of happy olfactive memories.

The packaging is almost perfect except that the black label may wear through a little into its gold backing during transportation. Otherwise, the glass work and box is beautiful and the cap has fantastic heft to it, gives the application process a sense of theatre which I like.

5 stars from me.

The opening impresses with a combination of cistus and strong labdanum, a brief moment of a certain brightness, that is soon followed by a fruity warmth.

The drydown reveals the woodsy core character of this creation, mainly cedar, a bit of fir, and guiac, a woman and smooth wood mix. There are whiffs of agarwood making transient appearances, but an olfactoric microscope is helpful in locating them. An overarching gentle incense appears at times, more like a restrained backdrop to the wood impressions.

The base develops a gentle sweetness, with hints of an brighter suede note, with the wood shining through until the end.

I get moderate sillage, very good projection and an excellent longevity of ten hours.

A pleasant autumnal composition, smooth, round and warm. The oud is subtle and not overly loud. No prize for creativity here, but it is all solidly done and very well blended from high-quality ingredients. 3/5.

The m

This is a very subtle, dark, and masculine take on the oud theme that chooses to make the oud note part of the general bone structure of the fragrance rather than the star. Despite the dried fruit, oud, and incense notes, this is more a dry, smoky woods fragrance than an imaginary trip down the Levantine coast – more Timbuktu than Jubilation XXV or Al Oudh, say.

The Heeley signature of refinement and grace is evident here. This will greatly appeal to anyone who prefers the delicacy of small, well-made objects to blingy costume jewelry. It's not a statement oud – it is a private pleasure to be absorbed and enjoyed in the small space between your breastbone and your shirt. From the dark, feline oud oil note at the start to the polished woods, leather, and crisp smoke background, nothing about Phoenicia is gaudy or loud.

Phoenicia reminds me of an old wooden casket that once held dried fruit and bunches of vetiver root wrapped up in paper, the aged smell of which has infiltrated the brown patina on the casket and exists more as a memory of scent in the grain of the wood than a direct, “present” note. A work of incredible subtlety, I would wear this everywhere without having to think twice about whether it's appropriate or not – this kind of thing will always be right, like Cary Grant.

I just don't like oud, and the cedar is not quite right to fix it for me.

Love this. More for a man than a woman I think - I've passed my samples to my husband and it's terrific on him. Boozy fruits, incense, smoke and cedar.

Gentle, flowing, poetry!
Not unlike most from Heeley. Here though, is a tone of quiet,warm, masculinity.
There is a soft interweave of dry Frankincense ala Cardinal, the perfume of Date richness, warmed Cognac and dry smoke, as of a fire smouldering. A remarkable conifer accord that is most pure. It draws me to the door, and leads me through to the transcendence that is Pine and Fir.
No wallop here though.
No, here we have subtlety.
Masculine, Smoky, Bliss.
Savour it.

A wonderful fragrance. Unlike most Heely perfumes Phoenicia is dark, subtle, mysterious and deep, long held promises to keep. There is a masculine alluring patina that emerges from the fragrance that hints with a subtle glow that old age is not weakness but "wisdom born of crystallized pain". Deep worn leather, aged tobacco, dates, aged wood, warmth of old wooden casks, all these essences are present within a non specific melange emitting the glow of well matured and seamlessly complete blending. Notes: Incense, Cistus, Date, Labdanum, Cedarwood, Leather, Oud, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Guaiac wood - all warming and deep reaching essences. Carefully place these elements into old wooden casks and age for +50 years, open and this is what might emerge if luck is with you! Voila! Nicely done Heely!

An interesting offering from a line that I tend to find kind of snoozy. This is a dry, woody, incense with the quiet hum of oud far in the background and some dry, fruity nuances. The most immediately perceptible accord is a cedar / vetiver combo and it comes across slightly fizzy with a bit of a humidor feel to it. It doesn't remind me of tobacco or cigars, but of wood cases or boxes that perhaps once held tobacco of some kind. I'd describe the scent as understated but present, and more than a little like Creed's Royal Oud. The delicate fruit tones are rum-like and remind me of a WAY muted Or du Serail. But it's a quiet scent, and given the price, I think that might raise some flags for people. Scents with high concentrations tend to do this – they form more of a long-lasting bubble with very little projection but a ton of sillage. This forms a bubble, but it's a close one, and I'd align the effect to something like that of Puredistance Black. Overall, I like it. I like the smoky subtlety as well as the close proximity of the effect, but I'm not sure this will win the hearts of those who like their fragrances to enter the room before they do. It's a pleasant, smoky, woody fragrance whose character emerges more in its restraint than anything else, but when I cite Royal Oud and Puredistance Black as points of reference, I'm not kidding – it's close to both, and I'd say it splits the difference between them.

Phoenicia opens with dry, stark woody incense, with hints of relatively sharp, slightly smoky vetiver support. As the composition moves to its early heart the stark woody incense increases in intensity, now joined by co-starring smooth, slightly rubbery synthetic Oud, as the composition adds a relatively subtle, slightly sweet jasmine-like fruity accord to the mix as well as underlying natural smelling cedarwood. During the late dry-down the incense gradually recedes leaving the refined synthetic Oud as the initial star before it too vacates, leaving traces of cedarwood to join slightly sweet creamy sandalwood through the finish. Projection is average but longevity is outstanding at over 15 hours on skin.

Phoenicia was a 2014 release that slipped under many people's radar including my own (probably helped by very limited initial distribution). Now that Heeley has broadened the distribution to more accessible outlets it is time to see if this initially elusive composition makes the grade... The first thing one notices when Phoenicia is applied on skin is its high level of refinement. Near immediately the wearer notices the gorgeous focal combination of relatively dry smoky incense with what most likely is synthetic Oud. This is not your normal synthetic Oud, however, as the presentation of this Oud is super-smooth, with only a faint hint of the usual rubbery aspect encountered, melding with the stark incense and subtle jasmine-like fruity supporting accord perfectly. The combination of the three really is impressive and quite pleasant smelling. Joining the focal accord is some very subtle support from underlying natural smelling cedar and slightly sharp vetiver that give just a modest counter to the super-smooth primary nature of the composition. The late dry-down is probably the least interesting aspect of development once the incense and Oud mostly vacate, leaving slightly sweet, creamy sandalwood to meld with the supporting cedar remnants, creating an almost woody vanilla-like effect that is a slight letdown. While surely less interesting, the late dry-down is not in any way a show stopper, with the overall experience quite sublime and extremely polished on the whole. What you *won't* find with Phoenicia is something avant garde or contemporary, as the composition really has a more classical structure, with some twists like its difficult to place well-integrated fruity accord to separate it from the pack. This is a composition that takes chances, but keep the risks minor, smelling pleasant at all times. The bottom line is the $250 per 50ml Extrait strength bottle Phoenicia will most likely not satisfy folks looking for quirky compositions, but those looking for one with sophisticated refinement, high quality materials and enough chances taken to positively distinguish it from competitors are bound to be quite satisfied, earning it an "excellent" 4 stars out of 5 rating and a strong recommendation.