Route Mandarine

My concentration spam is larger than that of a kitten but not by much. Which means that the rather fabulous samples I got months ago at Fragranze fair are not all reviewed.
Route Mandarine is a soft oriental, somewhat similar to the discontinued Opium d'Été. I mean, it is similar in concept and well, there's cinnamon, muguet and vanilla. Ylang-ylang in the top notes is very prominent and combined with cinnamon and muguet, it gets a mellifluous quality. Mellifluous is not a random nice word, after only a few minutes the fragrance turns to honey soli-... something. (1) Or honey with a dash of that Tesco smothie that made me sick the other day, it was mango and something (2) and there's a touch of a fruity zing in the scent. The citruses do not demonstrate as citrusy in a lemon cologne, there is a bit of bitter petitgrain that reminds me, as petitgrain does, of uncleaned litterbox from five metres afar. Orange is that touch of unripe strawberries - I should get some education, maybe these contain the same thing.
And... the fragrance works best in hot weather. Just now I'm sitting in my Florence place, sweating profusely, and the fragrance that had appeared not really bad but not entirely excellent got much better in heat, getting somewhat close to Asja.

Erm... I've been struggling with this review for more than a month. I've ran out of the generous sample so just a brief summary: this is a lovely oriental and it goes to my wishlist. Enough said.


(1) Soliflor means single flower. Similarly, and excuse my dog Latin, soliradix would be a single root, a vetiver thing, for example, and soliherba would be anything made of the parts above ground of a plant, a green cologne. The more knowledgeable among us can play this to infinity and beyond but thinking of it, I wouldn't venture into the territory of anal glands.
(2) The reason for my sick was not Tesco but the idiotic idea of drinking fruit juice in the morning when every cell of my body calls for triple dose of caffeine and stomach lining is still deeply asleep.


Top notes: Egyptian geranium, Florida orange, bergamot, Italian mandarin, clove, Ivory Coast citron, cinnamon and ylang ylang.
Heart notes: Patchouli, Bulgarian rose, muguet, Egyptian jasmine, orange blossom, Indian sandalwood and Haitian vetiver.
Base notes: White musk, vanilla, amber, Spanish labdanum, Indian ince.