A Complete Buyers Guide for Amouage Library Collection
Amouage’s Library collection has been given a completely new facelift from the inside out. The newly revamped collection consists of five unique perfumes that stand on 5 opulent vertical grounds representing the brand’s deeply rooted elements and essence with panache and grandeur. The remarkable results come to you courtesy of Cecile Zarokian, Bruno Jovanovic, Pierre Nergin, Jaques Cavallier, and Alberto Morillas, the talented names behind this collection and it’s my absolute honor to delve deeply into each one of the five fragrances.
Opus Xii Rose Incense is perhaps my favourite of the bunch, which is composed by Bruno Jovanovic. As a huge rose lover and collector, I am always on the hunt for different facets and textures Rose brings into a fragrance. I remember smelling this perfume for the first time back in 2020 and pondering over the mystic appeal of this gothic rosy beauty.
The version in the new collection still smells the same but slight differences are recognized in the smoky aspect of the original. Nevertheless, subtle differences do not take away from the excellence of this fragrance and I urge you to take a chance on one of a kind beautiful ashy, inky and resinous rose galore.
The fragrance opens up quite inky and more power to the perfumer who managed to capture the essence of an ink accord and seamlessly blend it with the Damask Rose. Olibanum plays a cardinal part in the development and lends its delicious resinous fruity anchor in conjunction with a tad bit of tartness from lemony elemi resin.
The heart gets deeper when the rose strips every ounce of its charm to pave a compelling powdery ambery ground. Myrrh takes the center stage for a significant time, ensuring that the oriental dimension of the fragrance is pronounced with much conviction. Vanilla note in Rose incense gives a powdery dusty swirl, elevating the whole experience to divine levels of beauty.
Rose Incense is a work of art and an exhilarating ride to be on. The wearer must be a confident and committed oriental rose lover to appreciate all the twists and turns this fragrance has to offer. This is the kind of rose you wear when you are ready to turn heads and receive lots of questions about your perfume.
Opus Xiv- Royal Tobacco, composed by Cecile Zarokian, is a predominantly ambery, balsamic tobacco fragrance that smells completely new and extremely regal. I don’t think I have smelled any other tobacco fragrance that feels quite like Royal Tobacco. The narrative behind this fragrance comes from the ruggedness of Cuban cigar as well as its respective environment and the brand’s creative director briefing with Cecile about all its possible nuances.
The fragrance gives us a beautiful duality of rawness, smoothness, strength, and frailty. It opens its journey with a burst of spicy freshness with a ton of aromatic runs.
Each note on the top establishes its presence by presenting its best traits and a heightened sense of aroma. Olibanum adds one of the most beautiful woody and resinous touches, whereas the cardamom and anise add some spicy kicks to it. Basil unravels all the fresh aromatic goodness to offset the balance, keeping it from being an overtly smoky leathery tobacco scent.
Now, Tobacco in this composition is definitely loud, and possibly one of the most realistic tobacco-smelling perfumes I have come across. It’s not honeyed or cherry tobacco but it rather steers into the direction of leafy green ground tobacco that you roll with your hand. The heart gets more fragrant with the help of the strong anisic smell of licorice and the fleeting presence of the rose.
The base divulges its smoldering smoky balsamic flair when Vanilla, myrrh, and birch tar take the center stage and work as a chamber piece. It’s arguably one of the most complex releases
and I truly feel that I will never get to know all the intricate details of this profound beauty. The fragrance, in my opinion, is quite masculine and anyone wearing this scent will stand out in the crowd.
This is a scent for special occasions, so do not wear it regularly. Sample before you commit yourself to a full bottle and once you are convinced about the sheer complexity of this scent, treat yourself with a travel atomizer or a full bottle.
Silver Oud is another composition by Cecile. It is the epitome of your true Middle Eastern homage to the agarwood and oriental oud fragrance genre. You have to man up to pull this off and no part of you can shed any ounce of weakness in your personality when you wear this beast.
Silver Oud is carnal at its finest with a humongous spiritual impact extracted from Nagamotha oil. The Nagamotha oil smells earthy and woody and borderline animalic to keep up with another animalic dominant in this scent, castoreum. Just wait for the magic to happen about an hour into your wear and something terrific happens.
Despite being an extremely loud oud scent, it melts down to a refined smooth base of vanilla and amber with the right amount of remnants of oudy, woody and spicy finishes. This fragrance is the definition of a nonlinear fragrance and your journey with your fragrance continues till the very end. I was taken by the uproar of all the loud notes until the very end when I found my solace in the credence of the base notes. So, have patience before you jump to a conclusion with this scent.
Reckless Leather is my second least favorite from the library collection because of the over-the-top sensorial journey that this scent takes you on. Again, complexity, quality, and affinity are present in every step of the way of this fragrance, yet it felt a bit topsy-turvy for me.
Reckless leather is a scent that smells extremely spicy and leans towards the culinary spicy smell you are shrouded with when you are inside an actual kitchen. The fragrance features some of the most beautiful notes in perfumery that have so much potential to carry a fragrance forward.
Evidently, notes of green galbanum, cardamom, and nutmeg try hard to catapult this fragrance to a different level but somehow midway, the leather, agarwood, and Nagamotha oil struggle to find their place in the composition. Everything becomes jumbled up quite fast, culminating in, what I think, is a waste of talent for two of best perfumers in the industry.
Having said that, I would still recommend Reckless leather if you are a massive fan of wearing a pungent spicy leather fragrance and experience the vibrato of this composition.
Wood Symphony is my least favorite from the Library collection, not because it’s a bad perfume, but because the iris, in here, somehow ended up smelling a bit too rooty, vegetal and violet-like. That is quite the statement coming from me, primarily because Iris is perhaps my favorite note in perfumery along with Rose, but this fragrance somehow lost its charm along the way and does not make the cut for me.
The top orris note smelled very dry and the boozy rum accord somehow did not mix well with the delicate part of orris butter. The floral heart of jasmine and rose never rose to prominence due to being overridden by the violet-like orris note. The base is all about civet and woods floating in the background. I was really hoping to love this fragrance a lot, but I somehow did not find peace in it.
Overall, the library collection is all about demystifying the mystic beauties of very specific ingredients. I think it’s going to be a wholesome experience for you if you ever decide to get your hands on it. Tell us what you thought of my take on the Library collection in the comments below.
