Best Honour 43 Woman by Amouage Alternatives & Similar Perfumes

This is a one-of-a-kind mix of musky jasmine and balsamic black hemlock. It's a perfume formed of echoes: the summery echo of jasmine bouncing off cool hemlock, the smoky echo of sandalwood vibrating against spices, and many more.

Santal takes its inspiration from a Sandalwood fragrance originally created in the 1800s which has then been given a distinctive contemporary edge.

White is a bright and lively fragrance built around the friction between hot spices and suave florals. The cinnamon, clove and cardamom opening suggests candied red hots, which makes it all the more surprising when the melange of rose de Mai and lily of the valley softly asserts itself. The undertone of tagete, with its bitter herbalness, keeps White from getting too “pretty-pretty”.

“Hey Bitch! You smell fucking good.” In Perfume World, that’s what we call a result. Hey Bitch! raises eyebrows with its dissonance between buttery, blowsy orange blossom and tough, bitter leather. Tangy rhubarb at the top snaps its fingers in your face, before dissolving into a blur of suedey iris and milky sandalwood. The dance between bitter and sweet keeps you on your toes throughout, conjuring hints of…what? Photocopier ink? Coffee? For sure it conjures ambered black leather, Bitch!

January 1618 A Japanese Galleon, the Pacific Ocean

Following a diplomatic mission to the West, a galleon carrying a delegation of samurai charges through dark ocean currents. Loaded with a rare and precious cargo, the ship’s hull is redolent of sweet-smelling tropical woods, heady Spanish leather, frankincense, fine black pepper and other exotic ground spices—the intoxicating spirit of a singular, extraordinary voyage of discovery.

A good perfume to visit if your are in a search for perfect true sandalwood,  smoky and a touch dirty. Arquiste carefully selected the companions for its sandal in this formula: tea and osmanthus, coffee, myrrh and stryrax and others to give it a dark, sensual depth.

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GQ US on Nanban:

"This is my signature scent. I wear it all the time. And let me tell you: I’ve never worn something that has gotten so many compliments—no sunglasses, no sneakers, no full-body rubber suit. People actually turn their heads and ask me what I'm wearing. And then they jot down the product name. Arquiste’s masterpiece introduces itself with Malabar black pepper and Persian saffron, gives way to coffee, sandalwood, myrrh, and Spanish leather, and embraces you all day with a blanket of frankincense, balsam, and cade juniper."

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Financial Times' resident perfume writer Victoria Frolova on Nanban:

"... approach coffee notes creatively. Instead of mimicking nature, a perfumer instead might fashion a blend that hints at coffee’s pleasing bitterness and heady richness. Such is Arquiste’s Nanban (£160 for 100ml EDP). The composition uses a plush backdrop of woods to frame the smoky, spicy notes of myrrh and incense, with an accent of coffee to lend the composition a dark, delicious twist. It teases with its smoky, nutty warmth, but keeps its presence mellow behind layers of sandalwood and leather."

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Matilde Bonaparte, niece of Napoleon I, was known for her breasts (“le plus beau décolleté”) and her talent as a painter. She also hosted a celebrated 19th-century Parisian salon attended by the greatest artists and writers of her time. This namesake perfume is an olfactory salon of provocative white florals (ylang-ylang, narcissus, jasmine) given tropical succulence with passion fruit and papaya. Mathilde’s heady brightness is softened by iris and sandalwood.

In India, flowers are sacred symbols and an essential part of daily life. “Malli Nadu” means “land of jasmine”, inspired by the paradise of perfume ingredients found in India. There’s jasmine sambac, cultivated in India since antiquity, with its radiant fruity/green sheen and animalic undertone. There’s tuberose, an opulent, powerful floral, along with davana, an aromatic plant unique to India with a profile that vibrates between apricot and herbaceous. Palmerosa oil supplies a geranium-like lift, while Indian vetiver and sandalwood deepens and softens the composition. Perfumer Ilias Ermenidis sought to translate the romance of India into this luminous scent, which he calls “a fragrance for lovers”

An iconic classic in its own rite, Quelques Fleurs is a true ingenious scent of its time. The French perfumer, Robert Bienaimé, unveiled Quelques Fleurs the first true multi-floral blend ever created, in 1912.

Since then, his perfectly-balanced, refined bouquet has become modern perfumery’s peerless criterion for pure, meticulously-crafted, multi-floral accords. Prior to his bold invention, floral fragrances had been mainly singular flowers, or florals combined with various nuances of herbs and spices. Bienaimé’s singular triumph is remarkable for its secret, mythical formula. Upwards of 15,000 exemplary flowers and 250 prestigious raw materials are diligently-curated in the creation of a single ounce of perfume.

This monster of an “anti-perfume” is simultaneously clean and dense, the olfactory interpretation of the building material. Aptly encased in a grey concrete bottle, this eau de parfum is an astonishingly diffusive blend of sandalwood, rose and spices, with a powerful smoothness that mimics the material's satisfying surface.

Perfumer: Mathieu Nardin

A gourmand perfume with an exotic twist. The core theme is bitter cocoa dusted with pepper. Even though we think of cocoa and chocolate as amlost the same sweet thing, cocoa powder on its own has more of an ambery, bitter woody and deep aroma rather than sweet chocolate vibes.

Perris took cocoa absolute and and styled it the Aztec way - no sugar, just the bitter tonifying glory.