The road into the village flooded yet again. I think that was number 20. Then, we had gales for three days running early last week (and we’re due gales again tomorrow). There are two huge potholes on the crossroads into the village which I reported to the highway department (which responded that they are too big to simply fill and will require that part of the road to be completely redone – which will happen … at some point in the future). I know I talk endlessly about the weather but it is such a big deal here – it’s hard to get away from it.
The T and D keys on my MacBook have both come loose. Anyone who uses Apple products had this experience? If yes, what should I do? The machine is seven years old and works fine otherwise. A new keyboard is around £300 and I can’t yet get my head round doing that.
Onward.
We’re doing Ex Idolo 33 today.
This is a sort-of-but-not-really new-to-me house. Not really because it has popped up over and over fairly frequently in the past few years and I just haven’t paid attention.
Why now? You ask. Well, after faffing with the Dior recently, for unknown reasons my brain returned to contemplating an oud fragrance that could be mine.
This brain blip has popped up on and off over probably the past five years and I have not yet encountered an oud I totally love.
I actually really like the Band-Aid aspect that some people dislike regarding oud, so I was looking for something where that was reasonably prominent. Other than that, I didn’t have particular needs – ie, it could be a floral oud, a stanky oud, etc – you get the picture.
I have tried a fair number of things and dismissed all of them. I can’t even remember which ones they made such meh impressions.
I can’t now recall how I ended up putting 33 on the sample list – maybe simply from a google search of oud fragrances.
But one of my usual sample haunts offers it so there you go.
I don’t generally check The Guide any more to see if there’s a review but did for this and boy, is Luca Turin fulsome. He’s snarky, but totally down with this.
Ex Idolo is weird. I need to say this. The website is basically useless. You can’t buy perfume or samples from it (unless I’m really missing something) – ie, it’s something of a place holder, I guess, telling you about the perfumes.
It does offer a list of places that do sell the perfumes … but, it is out of date. Who knows when someone actually last looked at it and thought about updating.
Thankfully, at least one of the places in the UK was still accurate.
So, my sample arrived … and because I’ve tried a lot of ouds over the years that simply didn’t do it for me my expectations were quite low.
Mistake. Big mistake (like the Julia Roberts character says in the film Pretty Woman during her shopping spree – I love that scene).
All in, this is as gorgeous as LT makes it out to be.
Released in 2013, notes include caoutchouc (‘natural rubber that has not been vulcanized*’), black pepper, mandarin, rose, Taif Rose, metallic notes, white tea, Iris, agarwood (oud), patchouli and heliotrope (I wasn’t sure what heliotrope smelled like so looked it up – per the Society of Scent, it’s “a warm delicate powdery floral with vanilla and marzipan notes and a trove of spicy licorice” … ok).
It opens smelling of wine lees on me – ie, the stuff left in the oak barrels after the wine is bottled – and develops into a lees/rose smell: a jammy, slightly sour (the oud?), slightly metallic rose. Clearly, there’s no grape in the notes list so is this the caoutchouc, I wonder…
As things heat up, we’re into tea and oud but not my Band-Aid oud. Rather, that slightly sour but not unpleasant wood fragrance. Maybe a bit of powdery iris as well.
This is long-lasting on me (like hours and hours) and on one of the days I wore it, just as I was on the edge of sleep, I caught a whiff of this gorgeous, clear, jammy rose – a smell so perfect I came wide awake. I think this is rose/patchouli maybe modified a bit by the heliotrope? In any case it’s glorious.
33 comes in 50 and 30ml sizes and here I found those for £145 and £115, respectively.
The house offers three other fragrances which I will buy in samples when they come back into stock (why not open a bottle for samples – I don’t get it). Two of the other perfumes are worth trying just for the names, IMHO: Love and Crime and Lucid Dream.
Will this go on the buy list? No. It’s beautiful but it doesn’t make my heart go pitter-pat – and as we know, particularly given current perfume prices, I need some serious pitter-pat to get out the credit card.
Anyone done the Ex Idolos? It seems to be quite widely available for a house which chooses to be rather obscure.
*vulcanized means hardened by a process
Pics: Pexels and mine
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