Soliflore Gardenia
Dame Perfumery (2015)

This is the exact smell of a two-day old, plucked gardenia flower. Quite the opposite of more mentholated interpretations with which most people are familiar, it retains the fetid, blue-cheese and mushroom aspect throughout the composition. It's a big floral, with large sillage, and so accurate I nearly purchased it. Upon further analysis, I note that its aura of rot often causes me a touch of nausea. I can only imagine its impact on others within my cloud who are more sensitive to fragrance. Accurate to a fault, and one that must be sprayed cautiously.

Melted butter. Dried, old grass clippings stuck to the bottom interior of a lawnmower deck. Faint bits of flower petals, with some waxiness. Weird stuff. I'm used to the screechy, imitation AC types of gardenia, that are usually mixed with other flowers. This Dame Perfumery scent, is the "gardenia" my mother always enjoyed.
The semi-oddness goes away in time. Left behind, are crushed leaves, slight tropical flower vibe, and buttery aspects. Wearable for some - but not a fave.

Gardenia from Dame Perfumery is a no-go for me, I'm afraid. I admit I've never smelled a gardenia in real life, but if it smells like this, then keep it far away from me. I am quite willing to recognize that this is very true to life, given that all the other Dame Perfumery soliflores are remarkably true to their source material. But tell me, does gardenia really smell like moldy butter, melted candy canes, and plastic? Because this is what Gardenia smells like.

Upon spraying it, I was immediately assaulted by the stench of butter that has developed black spots, and forgive me if this reference strikes you as being overly specific, but it is a clear olfactory memory from my time living in Belgrade in 2001.

Back then, the country was just opening up after years of NATO sanctions and obviously German producers were dumping all their stock on us cheaply. I would buy Meggle butter from the supermarket, and maybe 7 times out of 10, there would be black spots on it. If you have ever smelled butter that has gotten to this stage, then you'll know that it is one of the worst smells in the world. Sometimes, the black spots would be slow to emerge and you'd eat some of it, and immediately your mouth knew that, shit, this was black spot butter.

Later, it developed into a creamy candy-like smell that my five year old son identified as “sweeties”. He thought it was pleasant and asked me to buy it. I guess he never smelled black spot butter – his father and I had only begin dating when black spot butter was a part of our lives, otherwise he never would have asked me. I have bought a fair few perfumes on his request (Un Bois Vanille, Etro Heliotrope) but I'm afraid I can't indulge him here. Even the memory of it is making me dry-retch.

This review is for the oil version.

This is one of those extremely rare & beautiful things: a true, buttery, real gardenia scent! On first applying this, I get a faint note of wax crayons, but only when sniffing up close, & not for long. This may be due to the carrier oil, & personally I don't mind it, as it brings back happy childhood memories. Sniffing from a distance, all I smell is gardenia, & nothing else! The projection is good for the first three hours, & then it fades to a soft skin scent with just a hint of a grassy note.
I might just have to purchase this one, being a gardenia lover & very fussy about perfumes that attempt to replicate them. When I find one that succeeds, I have to have it!