Geoffrey Newman is the husband of Martine Micallef and together they are the founders of Parfums M Micallef. By looking at that name you might be led to believe that the perfumery for this house is being all done by Mme. Micallef. That would be a mistaken assertion as M. Newman has taken a hand in many of the fragrances. For the fragrances in the house that are meant to be seen as masculine they put his name on the bottle as G. Nejman. The first G. Nejman fragrance I tried was 2009’s Le Professionel and it was an above average spicy fragrance with a change-of-pace floral heart which worked surprisingly well. In the fragrances that M. Newman has had a hand in for the Micallef branded flacons he has shown a deft hand with oud. Vanilla Aoud is a beautifully intense composition with the two titular notes combining tremendously. That skill with oud made me want to try the fragrance they released in 2009 exclusively to the Arabian market, Emir. Now, thanks to our friends at First-In-Fragrance, Emir is available for the rest of us and we can all try it.

I can certainly sympathize with those of you who are experiencing oud fatigue. The last twelve months has seen this most Middle Eastern of notes used ubiquitously in seemingly every other new fragrance that comes out. I do have to say that I have been impressed with the versatility of oud when used by different perfumers as it has progressed form the rose oud combination through many different iterations. With Emir we come full circle back to a rose oud centered fragrance although the source of the rose is the “green rose” of geranium and that slightly tweaks the formula.

The opening has a tart citrus mix of pomelo which is Chinese grapefruit and orange. The pomelo is an almost green grapefruit as it doesn’t tilt all the way to the more familiar grapefruit note and the orange keeps it slightly sweet. This is a very fleeting phase and it gives way rapidly to geranium and oud. For those of you who love the intense rose oud combo exemplified by Montale Black Aoud this is a fresh twist on that, at about the same intensity. I am a big fan of geranium and M. Newman uses it to full effect and this allows the oud to fully expand. These notes remain throughout the rest of the development and patchouli, cedar and musk join them. These are not used in restrained quality they just up the ante throughout the end of Emir.

Emir has outstanding longevity and outstanding sillage. This is a fragrance those around you will know you are wearing.

M. Nejman has made an unapologetically intensely masculine fragrance and if, like me, you are feeling oud exhaustion give Emir a try. I think you’ll find it is worth taking one more trip into the agarwood fragrance forest.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by First-In-Fragrance.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor