The Different Company
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Curry leaf crashes through with immediate savoury intensity, its unusual green-vegetable freshness immediately disorienting against the warm pepper and bright bergamot. The first minutes are almost sharp, almost peppery-citric, suggesting this won't be the creamy, enveloping experience the name implies.
The rose materialises gradually, dusty and somewhat transparent, whilst the spice begins its slow retreat into the background. Amber and tonka emerge from beneath, their sweetness now modulated by labdanum's resinous, faintly leathery edge—the composition finally coheres into something warmer but never pliant, maintaining its structural integrity.
A soft, slightly powdery amber-tonka base settles onto skin, retaining whispers of the original curry-pepper character as a subtle undertone. The fragrance becomes increasingly abstract and intimate, less a scent and more a vague, spiced ambiance—though longevity remains genuinely modest, fading to skin-scent within hours.
Oriental Lounge arrives as a deliberately spiced counterpoint to the amber-tonka sweetness that dominates contemporary fragrances. Céline Ellena's construction is angular rather than plush—curry leaf opens with a distinctive savoury brightness, its green-edged grassiness immediately subverting expectations of what "oriental" should smell like. The pepper (likely black) doesn't whisper; it asserts itself as a structural element, threading through the composition with enough presence to keep the amber from becoming cloying. Bergamot adds citric definition to the top, preventing the whole from collapsing into pure gourmand territory.
The rose at the heart is subtle, almost peripheral—a dusty, slightly indolic quality rather than a showstopping floral moment. It functions less as a protagonist and more as a tonal modifier, softening the spice-amber interplay without derailing the composition's idiosyncratic vision. This is where Oriental Lounge distinguishes itself: most fragrances of this era would amplify the rose, wrap it in cashmere woods, and call it luxury. Here, it simply contextualises.
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Botica Botanica
3.9/5 (191)