British niche line Roja Parfums will launch Karenina and Oligarch Pour Homme in September. Recently introduced fragrances from the brand include H The Black Tier, O and Sultanate of Oman.
Karenina ~ "with prominent notes of Carnation, Frangipani, Violet and Vanilla all underscored by Leaf notes and topped with sparkling Aldehydes."
Oligarch Pour Homme ~ "with prominent notes of Lime, Lavender, Pink Pepper, Juniper Berry, Patchouli and Oakmoss and unusual notes of Cut Grass, Maté, Coconut and Apple it is the sweet smell of success."
H The Exclusive Black Tier ~ Exclusive to Harrods. "Black Tier is a rich treasure-trove of precious materials, including Saffron, which is worth its weight in gold. You’ll also find Jasmine from Grasse which costs twice the price of gold. The Casmir Wood and Labdanum give a feeling of soft luxury, whilst a beautiful Suede Accord is followed by an Amber accord - a natural base I blended that gives a wonderful sensuality. It reinforces the intimacy found in the Leather and the Labdanum notes. The softness of the Vanillic notes in the base bring this all together on a soft and luxurious bed.” £345 for 30 ml Parfum.
O ~ Made for the brand's stockists in Germany. "Fundamentally I wanted ‘O’ to be an Oriental scent as it is the richest family in perfumery. One of the materials I put into the composition, to give it an interesting note of modernity, is Pink Pepper, obtained using CO² Extraction. This gives a strong contrast to the very traditional wood notes found in the base – a reference to the fact that many German and Swiss houses use a lot of wood in their structure. The Oakmoss acts as a reference to the English Garden, sublimated by the earthy qualities of Cypriot."
Sultanate of Oman ~ "Sultanate of Oman is Roja's ode to the majestic kingdom that is home to the worlds finest and most precious Frankincense. Blended with notes of Rose, Aoud, Sandalwood and Saffron, this exotic perfume is utterly ubiquitous [sic] to the rich opulence of Middle Eastern ingredients."
(via Roja Parfums at Facebook)
I can understand why Luca Turin chides Roja for “over-egging the custard,” but I’d be surprised if I didn’t love one of these anyway.
Does he also mention that there’s just an awful lot of custard being made?
… with golden eggs;)
LT was actually only talking about Diaghilev, which is wayback now. I hope no one told him about the Tutti Frutti Ouds!
Would love a prominent carnation, though doubt I’ll stumble across this.
I’m sure I never will.
Oligarch Pour Homme — nothing better than naming your perfume after its target market
although I think Pour Homme is redundant.
It was going well in the notes until it got to “Coconut and Apple” and the “sweet smell of success.”
Exactly!!
I’ll tell my secretary to send for some OLIGARCH POUR HOMME.
Of course!
Secretary?? Your Butler surely ?!
Let’s compromise and have the butler send his secretary.
Oligarch? I mean, seriously? I don’t even want to know what was going on in Roja Dove’s head when he was choosing this name.
Come to think about it, Karenina as a perfume name sounds wrong as well.
YES — Karenina is arguably worse.
I look back with fond memories to the time when Roja Dove put out one his best (and of my favourites) fragrances – Diaghilev – for £75 for 100ml. It seems like such a long time ago, sigh.
Diaghilev is $1,150 in the U.S. now! They didn’t ship to the U.S. when it was reasonable, though. I’m glad to have collected some decants.
They made me a sample at Osswald and there’s 1.5-2ml in the vial. Almost $22 dollars of juice right there! I still haven’t decided if it’s $825 better than Jubilation 25.
I like Diaghilev a lot better than Jub 25, but yeah, $825… I just wish they offered a smaller bottle. 100 mls is a ridiculous size for an extrait of anything. And they do beautiful small bottles of the ouds.
The Russian market?
Hm, I doubt there is a market in Russia for Roja’s perfumes now, after the oil price has crashed. And Russian oligarchs may be evil, but they cannot all be THAT stupid.
“H The exclusive black tier” ?!? Black tier is the highest level of Harrods loyalty card which you get if you spend more than £10,000 a year there – who names their exclusive fragrance after a department store loyalty card ?! I actually attained it a few times after some crazy perfume spends and believe me, it’s not that exclusive!
And what if Harrods adds a new higher category –just as Mastercard has done with Titanium? Will that make “exclusive black tier” the mid-level scent?
Ha! That is bad and it already sounded silly before I knew what that was.
Such an unfortunate name. Did he even read the book?! But living in an oligarchy myself, I find the name Oligarch much worse, downright offending. C’mon, uncle Roja, Oligarchs hurt real people!
I was meaning to reply the comments on the names Karenina and Oligarch. Clumsy me. Sorry.
I’m just waiting to see Eau de Salaud hit the shelves. I’m fortunate enough to not live in an oligarchy but the name hits all the wrong buttons for me.
Plenty of them about though, in London these days.
Oh dear. When did the ultra-rich start responding to dog whistles like “worth its weight in gold…costs twice the price of gold”?
(Please don’t enlighten me…)
This is for the nouveau riche arrivistes. The rich have their own bespoke perfumes. Presumably the very rich have parfumiers on the staff list. (I’ll ask my deputy under-secretary’s butler, she knows these things).
Sounds like whoever named the juice ran out of brain cells. One letter names are so … pretentious and I guess that goes with the Roja Dove aesthetics.
This is so over the top ridiculous. No desire to ever smell another Roja Dove, although I did enjoy a couple of his first line, Enslaved and Unspoken. He really has gone off into the weeds.