Kindled Rose

Kindled Rose is the densest composition in the range and the founder's own stated favourite. Clove opens it, sharp and medicinal in the way clove always is for the first few minutes, before damask rose takes over as the centre. That rose is treated as a dark material rather than a fresh one, and praline sitting alongside it in the heart pushes it towards something jammy and confected. The base is where it commits: oud, tobacco and a chocolate note the brand calls chocolate noir, which together produce the faint cocoa-and-smoke reading the brand claims for it. That combination is genuinely polarising. Read generously it is rich and enveloping; read unsympathetically it is heavy, sweet and slightly medicinal all at once, and there is no version of this that reads as light. It is the strongest performer in the range and projects accordingly, so restraint with the atomiser is advisable. Winter is its season and evening its time; it is a poor choice for an office or for warm weather. Note that the brand has signalled Kindled Rose is being retired, so availability is finite.