Way Off Scenter's Review of Une Rose Chyprée by Tauer

Genre: Chypre

The name had me expecting a floral chypre with a rose heart, but that's not exactly what I'm smelling here. Instead, Une Rose Chyprée is a dark, sweet, and spicy floral-oriental with an especially deep, jammy rose note at its core. It reminds me very much of Nahéma, of Amouage's two rose-based Lyric scents, and by dint of conspicuous cinnamon (and clove?) notes, of Frederic Malle's Noir Epices as well. I'll take the perfumer's word for it that the basenotes include the chypre staples oakmoss and labdanum, but what I smell in there is mostly smoky vanillic amber.

Whether you consider Une Rose Chyprée a chypre or an oriental is of little account. What matters is the scent's smoldering, crepuscular beauty. The attempt to describe its qualities sends me scurrying after new words for “dark.” Yet for all its profundity, there is a paradoxical clarity to Une Rose Chyprée's structure. (A quality it again shares with Noir Epices.) In olfactory character it brings to mind the tolling of a deep, deep bell, or the entrancing velvety blue glow of the evening sky just before it goes completely black. I wouldn't wear it during the day, and certainly not in hot weather, but I think I'd have to pay attention to any woman wearing this scent in my presence. Une Rose Chyprée joins L'Air du Desert Marocain among my favorites from the Tauer line.

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