Roja Parfums
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The herbal trinity of basil, lavender, and bergamot announces itself with near-medicinal crispness—think crushed leaves and citrus zest meeting mint-tinged freshness. Within three minutes, however, coconut begins its creeping entrance, softening the edges considerably and introducing something almost creamy against the green spice.
By the first hour, heliotrope has fully bloomed into something powdery-sweet and almond-like, whilst the Grasse jasmine and May rose prevent this from tipping into pure gourmand. The coconut intensifies, creating a silky, tropical-adjacent sweetness that sits uncomfortably alongside pink pepper's sharp bite—the composition feels caught between candy shop and spice market, neither gaining full dominion.
The base settles into a warming, tobacco-forward composition where clove and cinnamon provide warmth rather than sharpness. Cedarwood and vetiver emerge with quiet authority, creating a smoky, slightly leathery bed beneath lingering benzoin sweetness. What remains is intimate, slightly powdery, decidedly earthy—the fragrance finally finds its conviction here, abandoning earlier ambivalence for something genuinely contemplative.
Manhattan reads as a fragrance caught between two distinct personalities, neither fully committing to either, which is precisely where its intrigue resides. Roja Dove has constructed something that begins as a herbaceous, almost culinary composition—the basil and lavender emerge with genuine kitchen-garden clarity, cut through with a rather austere bergamot—before pivoting sharply into a creamy, almost dessert-like heart dominated by heliotrope's almond-tinged sweetness and an unusually generous dose of coconut that lends a powdery, tropical softness.
What makes this particularly interesting is the tension between these two impulses. The floral heart—that Grasse jasmine, May rose, and violet combination—should theoretically soften the composition further, yet instead they seem caught between sweetness and a more structural elegance. The heliotrope threatens to tip this into gourmand territory, but the florist notes keep pulling it back toward something more refined.
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Bath & Body Works
4.2/5 (306)