SpongeBob SquarePants (ROUND 1)
scent of the day: Ensar’s Rose: Kynam Rouge, by Ensar Oud
For a rose perfume—indeed, for a perfume with the word “rose” in the title—this is unusually jasmine-heavy. It is almost so heavy that at moments I think this is more a jasmine scent than a rose one. What makes me pull back from saying that definitively is, of course, the variety of roses: Ward Sultani roses, Rose 1978, and Afghani rose otto. But what also makes me pull back—yes, even with my nose feeling like it is nuzzled right into indolic labia—is how, not that far from what we get in full glory in Dusita’s Oud Infini (one of my all-time favorite fragrances), the urinous civet boosts the bright acidity and even metallic glint of one or more of the rose elements to make for a rosy brightness, presumably centered around the Afghani rose otto, that very much reminds me—especially when I factor in the lemon-meets-grapefruit citrus—of Sultan White Rose Afgannissimo.
Neither way of thinking about it—more a jasmine frag, more a rose frag—is a negative for me. I love both florals, and they work together well here. We might just split the difference, which makes good sense experientially (since after the first hour, when the jasmine dies down a bit, it does seem evenly balanced), and call this a rose-jasmine animalic oud fragrance—and one hell of a hit at that.
Here we get the green stem and petal of rose plus a bubblegum impression from the champaca. This bubblegum impression is both boosted and dirtied by jasmine—not just one jasmine but many: aged red jasmine, SQ jasmine, and—it is unclear in Ensar’s wording, perhaps a third or maybe it is just his appositive for the combo of the other two—juhi (Jasminum auriculatum). These many jasmines do not just boost and dirty the bubblegum. They spice it and darken it and make it musty. They give it a fruit-ferment and a smoky quality. The result, if we want to call it gumlike (which I do), is a very adult gum that kids would not enjoy, especially given that in the first hour—in a surprise right out of Wonka—there are hints of sea urchin. That bubblegum—unsweet to semisweet (sweet more in the way that umami items or sea-brine can be sweet)—seems both powdered from the musk and yet smoked from the oud, and given a feline-urine flavor by the synergy of civet and a tonkin musk accord very close to the real deal I smell in my 1930s Shocking by Schiaparelli.
Another solid thing going for this is its fumy-wood-meets-ocean-kelp resemblance to Sultan Murad, one of my all-time favorite Ensars. I think it is crazy that all the stock has not been bought out. I think it is crazy that people not only sell Sultan Murad on the Facebook groups but struggle to sell them. It is a slander, in my mind, worse than the devaluation of Amphora Exotica fragrances—some of these. Even a legend like Vespers (another steller jasmine-champaca fragrance), you cannot even give away. But what do I know? I think the ambro-superambers are the most disgusting and obnoxious elements ever used in perfumery—and yet everyone seems to like them, these being the key element in a so-called “panty dropper” (which is something I cannot see, since even a waiter wearing a small spray ruins my experience at the restaurant).
Sultan Murad and Ensar’s Rose look very different on paper, I know. And this difference does track with experience. There is one glaring difference: Murad uses a Dukkan-SE-reminiscent berry-bush Turkish rose whereas Ensar’s Rose deploys a variety (prickly-grape Ward Sultani roses, ruby-jam-turned-resin Rose 1978, and SWR-Afgannissimo-reminiscent Afghani rose otto). And when you zoom out and be less analytic and just embrace the smell, I can also say that Murad is more aquatic and herbal while Ensar’s Rose is more bubblegum and fruit-fermented.
Aside from that, though, I stand by the similarities. Both have this alluring stem-and-leaf zoom-in on white florals: in Murad it is tuberose whereas in Ensar’s Rose it is jasmine. Both also bring a tension between a big burgundy body and sunny-green freshness. Both bring a seaside feel to me—both using, after all, ambergris and lotus: in Murad it is aquatic-tea blue lotus whereas in Ensar’s Rose it is dewy-nectar pink lotus. Finally, both have this green-smoke kinamic feel: in Murad it comes from the Port Moresby whereas here in Ensar’s Rose it comes from a trifecta of ouds that together actually feels a lot like Port Moresby to me, enough—given all the other resemblances—that I can see a “Kynam Rouge” version of Sultan Murad in the pipeline (especially for a ravenous house like Ensar, which seems to be leading the pack in the scramble to rake in as much money as possible before this ridiculous artisanal bubble pops and people realize that masters like Corticiotto from Parfum d’Empire—or even just our old friend Prin, who seems like a master perfumer next to the muddy likes of Pinoy Sirun and Elkhaldi—are waiting right there for them to grow up already and embrace).
The oud trifecta in Ensar’s Rose is worth pausing over: (1) Vietnamese sinensis from Nha Trang (bittersweet-medicinal Royal Guallam, the source of kinam feel), (2) Chinese sinensis from Hainan (orange-zest Hailam Kilam, a wonderful booster of the civet-rose acidity), and (3) Cambodian oud from Pursat (ginseng-pollen Royal Pursat, which adds both honey and greenery to round oud the impression of a full bouquet of florals and unify this fragrance as more bouquet than either jasmine or rose). I think the Royal Pursat is doing most of the heavy lifting here. But the citrus-peel brightness of the Hailam Kilam really allures me. I always snubbed the Hailam Kilam version of Private Blend—not because I have smelled it but just because I am more drawn to Overfunk and other more animalic-packaged versions. My experience here, plus my experience with musk enough to know what wonders orange bitterness would add, make me reconsider that.
I only have a sample of the original Ensar’s Rose. I loved that one—it is really musty and brown. I am glad I got this one, though. The amplification of the jasmine and the added greenery, held in tension with the musty dark base, is a chef’s kiss. Unfortunately, in the case of this new version (though this might apply to the old as well), it dies down to a woody gum skin scent after four hours. Still, those first four hours are filled with an enriching pizzazz that reminds me a lot of some of Yaaseen’s jasmine-focused attars. Especially as the opening civet-rose ocean-brine fireworks die down, Amina’s Yasminas comes to mind: a dusty bubblegum-beautiful rendition of jasmine with hints of indolics that finally collapses into a much louder, oud-reinforced carnality.
*Let’s workshop this poem about well-meaning and scientifically-informed parents who make a tragic optimization error when it comes to how to raise their children.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Kids forever crippled— so cut off from peer currency that they are seen as weird, stupid
even (just a few Shakespeare plays short of retarded)—because health-minded parents,
neglecting loneliness’s impact on longevity, resisted our ecosystem of endless screens.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
