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Post by FeralJasmine

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Deep Soft Luxury: Mohur Extrait

Sometimes a perfume offers you access to a dream. Back in my distant 20s, when I was first getting serious about Indian cooking, I also had a farm and a Jersey cow named Lily, who flooded my kitchen with the freshest, creamiest milk, cream, and butter. During those distant days, I made a dessert that lives on in my memory even though I’ve never tried to duplicate it. It involved that morning’s rich milk cooked down very slowly with a tiny bit of rice until it thickened on its own, lightly sweetened, and lightly seasoned with saffron and rosewater. While it lasted, I savored a tiny cupful every day. I would sniff it for a long time before starting in on it. Mohur extrait reminds me of it.

Mohur Extrait by Neela Vermeire Creations 2014

Mohur Extrait by Bertrand Duchaufour

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Cardamom, coriander, ambrette (musk mallow), carrot seeds, pepper, elemi
Heart: Iris, jasmine, rose, violet, almond, leather
Base: Sandalwood, amber, woody notes, patchouli, agarwood (oud), benzoin, vanilla, tonka bean

Does this mean that Mohur Extrait smells like a dessert? Not by a long shot. But it has similar notes and the same sense of an extraordinary luxury entering a workaday life. The rose is perfect. Not blowsy, not green and tight and ungiving, just caught at its peak of exquisiteness. The saffron smells very delicate and very real. I greatly dislike the chemical equivalent, saffraleine or whatever it’s called, and this smells more like the precious CO2 extract of pure saffron of which I have a tiny, treasured bottle. Vanilla and benzoin combine to make a soft, elegant bed for her majesty the rose to recline upon. Everything is in harmony, and nothing is overemphasized. The cardamom note is one of the subtlest, and loveliest, that I have experienced. This one shoots straight to the top of my list of rose favorites.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

I want to say more about my perception that some clean cream notes round out the scent. The combination of vanilla and benzoin and tonka often has creamy and buttery notes to me, and I want to emphasize that I am not talking about condensed-milk notes. In these benighted times, few people have experienced rich milk fresh from the cow, but the scent is clean, creamy, supple, with a note of lost childhood in it. If you haven’t smelled really fresh milk, I have no idea what you would compare this scent to. Perhaps the closest equivalent is really clean fresh hay combined with powder, hypnotic in a pleasantly dreamy rather than a narcotic way, like the most perfect summer afternoon.

Photo Stolen Wikipedia

Further reading: Alembicated Genie and Colognoisseur
Neela Vermeire Creations has an email you can order from
LuckyScent has $465/50ml

I am an admirer of the Neela Vermeire Creations line, and this is the only line I can think of where I love every single scent. Probably nothing can knock my beloved Trayee off its pedestal. Mohur Extrait is a very different and equally bewitching thing. Try it. Simple as that.

FeralJasmine XX