Rosa Verdade (2018) Mellifluence Attar Review*

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Rosa Verdade is a rose festival from Mellifluence Perfumes - a one man all-natural perfume brand by Abdullah. It starts off with a beautiful sparkly green and slightly spicy rose note coming from all those different rose ingredients - assisted by neroli. The neroli is not strong enough to be indolic, which is a good feature in this composition as it is a very soft rose soliflore to my nose. I suspect it helps to lift the citrus/sparkly facets at initial stage.

 From the very beginning I also get a rose smell that I tend to get only after the top note subsides - i.e., reduced intensity of sparkly, citrus and green facets of rose. This smell is quite realistic – as if I am smelling rose from the plant in the morning when rose shreds most of its fragrance. RV is never too loud, always demure and avuncular.
Rosa Verdade (2018): A Demure Rose Soliflore

I then get a creamy rose, which to me, is the best part of this attar. It is probably ​coming from the 15 years old ​D. ​rose otto, since it will have the least amount of top notes and the age has turned it into a mellow one. As it is creamy, I want to call it gourmand as I feel like tasting it! But it is not and do not worry I won't! It then slowly becomes creamier and still quite green, along with a little murmur of a proper deer musk ​(sweetness) ​and ambrette. However, there is something different about this musky smell. I cannot figure it out. I guess it is due to the musk rose (Rosa moschata, or Rosa damascena) which is contributing in the 'musk accord'.
Pink Rose from Our Garden (2019)

 From start to end (, easily 8+ hours on my very dry skin), I get beautiful green whiffs from Javanese vetiver and oud, followed by a soft woody smell [assisted by other oils, of course]. This is one of the few attars, (along with Al Khidr from the same perfumer,) that smells totally different on my skin and clothes. Considering this pattern, I speculate that it is something to do with the green Malaysian oud used in both attars. It lacks the sea-breeze odour that I get from the other – largely due to ambergris.

 I am going to try this with ambergris maceration that I also bought from Abdullah to see if I can widen this attar’s spectrum and diffusion. I wish it had some Taif rose too because I love that stuff. This is an excellent attar for people who like to enjoy green, spicy, super creamy rose at the beginning and want to end the experience with musky rose helped by deer musk, ambrette – effectively, almost every type of rose in one go with a calmer tone.

 Official Ingredients List
Neroli, Rosa damascena, Bulgarian rose, musk rose, Kashmiri deer musk, ambrette, jasmine sambac ruh (EO), Australian sandalwood, iris, muhuhu, boya wood, civet, saffron, Rose de Mai extract, Haitian vetiver, benzoin heart, Labdanum 2002, Ketelan (Java) oud, green Malaysian oud.

* This slightly updated brief review was first published in 2018

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