Amouage Gold Extrait Review

Back when I started my perfume journey, I had an unhealthy obsession with Amouage Gold. It was a dabber sample after dabber sample for quite a while. Then when I sprung for a full bottle of the EDP, I quickly figured out that Gold really wasn't for me. There is something about the musk that really went wrong. It smelled like I stepped in dog poop. Years later, I tried Gold for men and it was a little more of my vibe but not really. Vintage Gold for women smelled pretty good but not really.

For some reason, I have a decant of Gold extrait and decided to give it a shot. I figure that if I don't care for the extrait, Gold for women and I just aren't meant to be. And we are not meant to be. While the extrait is well made and incredibly well blended, it's just too much in all respects. The musk part is amped up and this smells like an upscale vintage no 5. The musk in Gold is overwhelming and gives a a bigger stepped in dog poop vibe. I am sure that this does work for some people but this isn't my thing. I think that I will stick to either Dia or no 5 proper for my aldehydes fix.

 I am happy that I honestly gave Gold a true shot to see if she was my vibe and after about 10 plus years of perfume blogging and trying Gold off and on through out it. Gold just seems to go off the rails on my skin. My bank account is incredibly happy that this perfume just really isn't for me. I am also happy that there are other Amouage offerings that I have and totally work for me.
 

What Not to Wear Out of the House

I have some good news, the bottle of Arabie that I thought was lost has been found. Somehow, Arabie ended up is a random toiletries basket. I'm blaming the puppy and her learning how to counter surf and then my mother throwing it in that basket. The vintage bottle of L'Heure Bleue has arrived and I am ecstatic. I haven't spent a whole lot of time with it, except for gazing at the bottle marveling on how small a 1.6 ounce bottle of EDC is.

I have compiled a list of perfumes that I can only wear alone. I think that every perfumista has a handful of perfumes that they only wear when they are alone in the house. Those perfumes can be too skanky or there is something about them that renders them not fit for public.

Amouage Gold for men and women: I honestly don't thing that it's the structure of the perfumes themselves but I think that it's the whopping dose of civet (or is it ambergris?) that makes this too poopy. The men's version has a whole lot less going on and I am more apt to wear the men's version then the women's

Patou Joy: I have yet to try the extrait version of Joy, so I can't comment on it. I have the EDP version and I do love Joy. I love how the jasmine and rose play well together. The rose and jasmine is bright, not at all powdery and don't compete with each other. But Joy has a noticeable cat pee type of note that I think that the jasmine probably creates.

Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan: What seems to be the musks to end all musks. I personally love it but while people like it on me, they just simply don't like the perfume itself. So it's regulated for the alone pile. But it's not the sluttiest perfume I own and that's vintage Bal a Versailles and I wear it out of the house and everyone swoons.

Amouage Gold for Men

I've been struggling with Amouage's offerings for men. None of what I had tried didn't wow me, let alone impress me. They were light, thin and weak things. I couldn't understand nor see the correlation between the men's version and the women's version of any of them. Then came Gold for men.

I have always found Gold for women a little difficult to wear. Too big, too dense, and way too much civet that got really fecal. As difficult as the women's version is, I do wear it from time to time.

Gold for men starts out as almost a dead ringer for the women's version. I noticed that everything is toned down and drier. The floral aspect is still prominant but doesn't smell overwhelming to my nose. What made me really happy is the civet note wasn't huge and fecal. There was just enough to give it a bit of a growl. Gold Woman has a civet note was huge to the point of crass and was very poopy. I loved how the frankincense was very prominant and didn't allow anything to get out of hand. Gold Man has the lasting power of nuclear waste of my perfume eating skin.

I'm in love with Gold Man because I see how it ties into Gold Woman. Could I see a man wearing this? It would take a very confidant man to wear it but I would gladly take a bottle. So I have to save my pennies and get it for my birthday, or Christmas or when I get my next tax refund.

Amouage Jubilation 25 Extrait Review

I have always had a thing for a few of Amouage's early works. Memoir, Epic, and Lyric are the ones that I love the most. Dia and Gold took a little while for me to love but I haven't been that enthused by Amouage's work after Honour with Beloved being an exception. Maybe Christopher Chong has lost a little bit of his direction or after so many Amouage classics that the bar is probably set a little too high.

For the past few mornings, I've been wearing Gold (women's version) before my shower. For quite a while, I haven't been wearing Gold. I've always known that it was a grand perfume and that I don't have many occasions to wear it to. Sunday morning was the morning of doom for Gold. For some reason, it infuriated my mother who said that it stinks and to throw it out. I had forgotten how animalic it was. Gold is much more than Chanel no 5 on steroids. Dia is no 5 on steroids. I still wouldn't go calling Gold skanky or high class skanky. So I guess I will be wearing Gold when everybody is out of the house. But you didn't come for me yakking about Gold.

It took me a really long time for me to love Jubilation 25. Don't get me wrong, I do love Jubilation 25 but there is something about her that won't let me wear it on a regular basis. I say it's the fruity aspect of it that makes it impossible for me to wear it frequently. Mitsouko and I have the same issue. Yesterday afternoon, I applied my dab of Jubilation 25 in extrait form. Holy crap, is it good. There is a depth and richness to it that made my jaw drop. The bloom of Jubilation 25 takes a little longer to open up and have people notice. From trying the Lyric and now the Jubilation 25 in extrait form, they still smell just like the EDP's but it's deeper and richer. it's not like the Chanels and every concentration seems to smell different. For reasons that I can't fathom, Amouage has the full bottle extraits in 1.7 ounce sprays and very few perfumers have extraits in spray form. I'm happy to say that it was a good thing that I only got a dabber and not a spray decant. Only a dab will do ya and this lasts  for an effortless 10 hours on my skin.

Those That Don't Get Enough Love

Since I have been reading perfume blogs and reviews it hit me that there are a few perfumes in my collection that really don't get a whole lot of love. It is kind of funny though how we bloggers can keep raving about 3 perfumes from any given house and kind of ignore the rest of that perfume house's offerings.

One of those perfumes is Amouage's Dia for women. Dia is marketed as a lighter version of Amouage's Gold for women. I think Dia should be viewed as a perfume in it's own right. There are many things that make Gold and Dia similar but there is a world of difference between the two. Dia is effervescent especially in the beginning with the aldehydes then dries down to the jasmine/rose soap but still has a butt load of aldehydes. The aldehydes in Gold are more of on the oily side for me and dries down to flowers and civet. Gold and Dia are basically the same perfume and I love both enough to own a full bottle, but Dia really doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention because it is "Gold Light" or "Diet Gold". I find myself in a lot of situations where Gold would be too much but Dia would fit the bill.

Amouage's Memoir for woman is another one that I think that doesn't get a whole lot of love while Lyric, Jubilation, Ubar, and Epic do get a lot of love. I did swoon over Lyric and do wear it often but I keep going back to Memoir and wonder why I am not wearing it as often as Lyric. It does seem for some odd reason that Lyric does get ignored. Maybe because it is on the sweet, almost gourmand like for a perfume. It could be that Memoir is one of those perfumes that is a modern chypre that not to many seem to be interested in or casual users of perfume don't care to decipher.

Amazon and Amouage

I hope that everyone that reads my blog, has had a nice holiday. It's always around either my birthday or around Christmas that I seriously look at a full bottle of Amouage. But it's always the same song and dance, I have narrowed it down to two of the Amouages but can only get 1. It's the debate between Gold and Lyric. What is bringing it on is that there is a $100 credit sitting in my Amazon account and the seller Lady Ruth seems to be running a discount on a lot of the Amouages. I'm seeing anywhere between $30 to $50 cheaper.

Amouage Gold EDP Review

Quite a while back, I had drained a small spray decant of Amouage Gold Cristal (EDT) for women and then preceded to drain a small sample of Amouage Gold in EDP form.After a while, I did forget about Amouage Gold and then couldn't remember why it was on my full bottle buy list. Then I managed to find a 3ml manufacturer's sample on Surrender to Chance (those Amouage carded sample goes really fast). Then my memory was refreshed on why it is on my full bottle list.

Amouage Gold for women is almost identical to Dia for women but I can tell the difference between the two. Gold does not have the astringent like blast of aldehydes that Dia has. I find that Gold does have a little more heft than Dia but ultimately, Gold is the same scent as Dia. The dry down is like a very expensive jasmine/rose soap. Like all of Amouage perfumes, Gold lasts forever on skin.

What I don't get is that Gold is described as being for evening wear and Dia is for daytime wear. I find that I can wear Gold during daylight hours. Even though Gold is on my buy list, it has moved down a bit because I already own Dia but still want a full bottle.

Amouage Gold Cristal for Women

I was poking around the Perfumed Court looking to see what the price for a decant of Amouage's Gold for women. I didn't come across it but did come across what was Amouage Cristal for women in EDT. I do have a small sample of Amouage Gold for women from Luckyscent and had to bring it out to compare with the decant of Gold Cristal. I find that there is no difference between the two. Gold is similar to Amouage's Dia, but Gold is heavier. I get the same astringent like note from Gold like I do Dia. I actually find it to be pleasant in both. But I find that Gold seems to be a marriage between Dia and Ubar. It's not quite the big floral monster like Ubar but Gold is not a skin scent either. I love Amouage's Gold and find it to be very bottle worthy and would be a welcome addition to my collection.