Plum Japonais

Wow. This is impressive stuff!

I read a lot of reviews before buying this, and was surprised at how positively it was received. People couldn't say enough good things about it, and it sounded spectacular and different.

Different it is. I was sort of put off when I first tried this on, to the point where I was starting to feel some serious buyers' remorse. But as I wore it more, I got kind of hooked. This is the weirdest perfume; wonderful, introspective, shocking, smouldering, intensely noir. I haven't been so taken aback by a fragrance in a while.

This thing is really, really hard to describe in words. It's like so many things, and it evokes so many memories that it's hard to put a finger on what this smell is. It's spice, resin, caramelized plum, burning incense, woods, berries - and everything, always, is tinged with ash and smoke. Its like a fruitcake on FIRE!

Plum Japonais is heavy, smoky, masculine, sticky-sweet in the most illusive way (the sweetness, though sticky, is never at the forefront, it's always heavily veiled and boxed-in by spices, wood and ash). The way I would describe this fragrance is inaccessible. This isn't to say that it doesn't make sense or you could never learn to enjoy it, it's more that it's mysterious and odd. A lot of time, when we fragrance-lovers put on perfume, we're putting on a personality, borrowing a style. If it were a person, Plum Japonais would be someone interesting whom you could never actually know or fully understand on a fundamental level. That's what makes this perfume so fascinating.

Here are some extra photos for the packaging.

To view a list of notes, please see Fragrantica.com



Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

A.