The first impression is "aldehydes and dark labdanum", but then it quickly becomes a rose. An impossibly tender, melting rose, with some tart red berries, a bit like the rose/berry combo in Smolderose.
It opens out into rose-and-plush-amber, still a bit fruity. Kind of a creme-brulee-with-berries effect. Reminiscent of Les Indes Galantes (also by Zarokian) but not quite as sweet.
In my book, the ultimate sweetened rose is Tocade, which is gaudy but magical in a Disney-princess way. Sheiduna is the elegant, muted version; it's good but it doesn't quite hit the exact spot between rose and vanilla that makes woodland birds perch on your hand.
White is quiet. It starts with a fresh citrusy floral with lots of white laundry musk, and then goes sunnier and softer, with a hint of the fruity pink rose that shows up in a lot of Puredistance compositions.
a few minutes in, it's distinctly rosy: a pale-pink, tender May garden rose. gradually it gets warmer, deeper, and richer. It's still blanketed in white musk, but I do enjoy this phase.
and then finally it settles into more white musk with a vague beige "perfumeyness" around it, still citrusy, still soft and light.
I'm starting to become a decided Puredistance skeptic. They're marketed as fancy niche stuff, but the scents are often harshly synthetic, and sometimes a little vulgar or generic. White is perfectly fine and pretty, but not very distinctive. It's a lot of "clean" synthetic white musk and very light on everything else, apart from a brief rose interlude.
Black goes on with amber and a hint of dark chocolate, and thereafter becomes a fruity, berry-jam rose. The effect is royal purple, with some black tendrils of smoke. It's definitely a quiet skin scent, which is good because I'm not crazy about this style of perfume.
A few minutes in, I get a dry, dark smoky wood with a distinctive fragrance -- maybe oudh. There might be some natural wood in here, or at least a high-quality recreation. It's definitely not just cypriol (the cheap smoky-smelling compound that most "oud" actually is these days.) It completely replaces the jammy rose for a few minutes, but then the purple is back with a vengeance, bigger than ever.
Then we get a pink fluffy cotton-candy rose, very sweet...which quickly gives way to a rather medicinal amber note.
The amber base is a bit musky, a bit smoky, enriched with the oudh. And the purple jammy rose comes out for another encore, this time blended with the amber. It's not bad, at this point: the effect is pleasantly dissolute, like a speakeasy.
Overall, "Black" probably qualifies as a rose-oudh in a neo-Arabian style: jammy, super-sweet, rather vulgar purple and pink roses, against a smoky black backdrop. There's more going on here than in, say, the much cheaper Montale Black Oud, but I'm not sure I see much point in going upscale for what's fundamentally a goofy, cartoony olfactory effect.
It has always existed, in a blinding variety of forms. It goes by many names, as if to confuse the seeker. It can be found everywhere, but only if you're looking.
If you travel to Polynesia, you will hear about mana, a spiritual quality found in people and objects of power. At Findhorn Garden in northern Scotland, they'll tell you about the tutelary deva that inhabits each flower and tree. The earthy and plainspoken Vikings knew it as vættur (wight) or álfr (elf)-- both personifications of a nameless, vital energy.
In ancient Rome, philosophers called it numen, ineffable presence; the Greeks called it a eudaimon and believed it responsible for conferring happiness on all mortal beings. In Japan, it is addressed as Ō-kami, honorable great being, and is reckoned mighty enough to shake the foundations of the earth.
Incarnated in this tiny sample vial, it is called Puredistance I.
For a perfume billed as one of the most exclusive on earth, it looks quite innocuous -- a glass tube full of rosy-amber liquid, enclosed in a clever white box which unfolds like a reliquary and snaps crisply closed as though it concealed a tiny, hidden rare-earth magnet. And it probably does. The full-bottle iteration of PI comes in packaging so deluxe that I probably couldn't afford it even if it came without the perfume. Sheathed in a protective block of Swarovski crystal as if to shield it from the world's contaminants, it is clearly meant to be perceived as a precious, even powerful substance, needful of careful containment. (If this were Pandora, the atomizer and cap would be made of pure unobtainium.)
Getting the sample vial open poses a challenge, as the plastic stopper appears to operate on a flexible ball-and-socket principle, ballooning slightly within the rim to create a hermetic seal. Obviously, if I want to gain access to the elixir inside, I'll be forced to work for it. My hands tremble during the procedure-- partly from effort, partly from terror. What if I should fumble and spill it? Would this be Joy all over again?
Finally the stopper slides through, and I hold the vial under my nose.
I suppose I've been conditioned to expect an aloof attitude from people and things of luxury-- a snobbish stance that questions my right to partake. But what wafts up to meet my nostrils was so friendly, so glad to greet me, I wonder if I'm imagining things. This isJoy all right; not Jean Patou's version, but the real thing. Who am I to argue?
I place my fingertip over the mouth of the vial, tip it, touch the perfume to the base of my throat, restopper the vial, and wait to see what will happen.
Over the next fifteen minutes, PI enters my aura and just-- proliferates. From a single point of contact on my throat, it seems to expand, multiply, fill my etheric body like helium. Sounds hippy-dippy? I agree. But I can't deny what it does for my energy. I have experienced the same effect when I've worn a particular quartz crystal next to my skin-- a thrum of electricity all through me, as if I've just plugged into a hidden power source. Although my morning began with various anxieties and tests of my patience, I now feel calm and grounded, all my tiny pinhole leaks repaired.
When you encounter it, you may be as incredulous as I am now. But there it is. So synchronized doI feel to Puredistance after half an hour that I forget I'm simply -- what do you call it? -- wearing a perfume.
Yet PI is a perfume. And what a perfume-- one of the loveliest I've had the pleasure to meet. Beginning with an awe-inspiring virtual sunrise composed of citrus-blossom notes, it wends its way slowly and meditatively through a garden of cream and butter-yellow flowers before coming to rest on a tender chord of musk. And the cassis? Irreproachable. PI contains blackcurrant the way a properly-mixed kir cleaves to the ratio of one-tenth crème de cassis to nine-tenths dry white wine. The result: crisp and sparkling, yet graceful and restrained. The implied presence of the round, ripe, glossy blackcurrant is far more effective than any crass surfeit of the fruit. (Got that, Thierry Mugler?)
Works of art perform many useful services for mankind, the greatest of which may be to liberate our emotions. Rare may be the perfume that accomplishes this feat; once encountered, it forces a shift in belief. I might have held PI at a skeptical distance if I had not experienced it for myself. Now, like one who has met the Buddha on the roadside, I understand why such great lengths have been traveled to present this fragrance to the world. It is precious. It is powerful. It goes beyond mere perfumery and enters the realm of the numen, the mana, the eudaimon.
I'll leave you with the one tiny word that changed a great man's fate forever. Is it any wonder he found it in an art gallery? Let him tell the story:
…I saw this ladder on a painting leading up to the ceiling where there was a spyglass hanging down. It’s what made me stay. I went up the ladder and I got the spyglass and there was tiny little writing there. You really have to stand on top of the ladder -- you feel like a fool, you could fall any minute -- and you look through and it just says "YES"…
Well, all the so-called avant-garde art at the time and everything that was supposedly interesting was all negative, this smash-the-piano-with-a-hammer, break-the-sculpture boring, negative crap. It was all anti-, anti-, anti-. Anti-art, anti-establishment. And just that “YES” made me stay in a gallery full of apples and nails instead of just walking out….
--John Lennon, describing his first encounter with the artist Yoko Ono, from a 1980 Playboy interview with journalist David Sheff
Scent Elements: Tangerine blossom, cassis, neroli bigarade, magnolia, rose wardia, jasmine, mimosa, amber, vetiver, white musk, and a mystery substance known as "parmenthia" about which I have been unable to find any information whatsoever, being that it never appears in anything but Puredistance ad copy and related reviews. Being an fan of Avatar, I like to think parmenthia only grows on Pandora, and is the "active ingredient" that fills this perfume with Eywa.)
Ahhhh the comforting green soapy beauty of @puredistancemasterperfumes Antonia 🌿 a stunning jasmine-rose classic blend with a galbanum heart 💚 grassy vetiver, green ivy & powdery iris oh my 🌿 Antonia is everything I love in perfume - classical but not old fashioned with a gorgeous powdery soapy dry down that reminds me of equal parts Chanel 22 & Lady Stetson 🌿 if you know me you know I mean that as the highest of praise. This perfume is simply gorgeous 🌿 #perfumewhisperer #puredistance #puredistanceantonia #greenperfume #60sstyle #vintageperfume #perfumelovers #fragrancelovers https://www.instagram.com/p/CRsQFXnFOYz/?utm_medium=tumblr
Aenotus by @puredistancemasterperfumes On first spritz the burst of juicy citruses (🍋 in particular) reminded me a lot of classic men’s cologne the likes of Dior’s Eau Sauvage etc. Petit grain comes through, the leaves and green twigs of the bitter orange tree layered on top of pu-erh tea 🍵 like oakmoss and dark woody patchouli. The resulting effect is a scent that’s feels like a luxurious aftershave, clean, soapy 🧼 and at ease. Reminds me of: vintage colognes and aftershaves - mainly because of the citrus impression. ✨Interestingly the fragrance is 48% perfume oil which is nearly 9x the dosage of colognes. Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #puredistance #fragrance #fragrances #perfumes #perfume #parfum #fragranceaddict #perfumecollection #fragrancelover #PerfumeReviews #PerfumeReview #nicheperfume #nicheperfumes #scent #fragranceoftheday #香水 #香味 #perfumeaddict #fragrancearmy #scentoftheday #fragfam #scentoftheday #perfumelovers #fragfam #fragcomm #thefragrancesociety #aenotus https://www.instagram.com/p/BvjnEhKnwhH/?igshid=ry1ummzwqwxn
@puredistancemasterperfumes WHITE, white roses, white musk, white woods 🌫 soft clouds of clean expensive white soap on skin, link to my original review in profile 🌫 Knights In White Satin by #themoodyblues plays in the background 🌫 nails by @breathtakingnailspa 🌫#puredistance #antoinelie #masterperfumer #perfumewhisperer #whitenails #luxuryperfume #perfumes #perfumecollection #fragrancelover https://www.instagram.com/p/B1jeen0FwoX/?igshid=1qc2b73d6y066
ピュアディスタンスのヴァルシャーヴァ。
ムエットを振った瞬間の第一印象は「エディブル」。edibleです。お菓子とか果実とかじゃなくて、食事というか麦？みたいな食べられそうな香り。甘いというより旨い。そして温かい。身につけてみた印象は、優雅でやさしいエディブルなチュベローズ。ノートにチュベローズは入ってませんが（笑）。とっても優雅だけれども、盛装にしか合わないかというとそんなこともなく、カジュアルも受け入れてくれる懐の深さを持っていると思います。香りの変化はほとんどない感じ。サンプルボトルの1プッシュでも一日きれいに香ります。
My first impression was "edible (can eat)". Not sugary or fruity, but reminds me meals or wheat foods. Not sweet but smells tasty somehow, and warm. When I apply, it's very elegant, sophisticated, and tender edible tuberose. There isn't tuberose in its notes though. Perfect for dress up style, good for casual style with open gentle arms. I only need one little spray of the sample tube for a day.
