Amber is one of my favorite notes in all of perfumery. I love the way it can have an almost medicinal edgy feel to it as in Montale Blue Amber; or that it can be as soft and warm as a cashmere sweater as in Jean-Claude Ellena’s Heremessence Ambre Narguile. One thing all of the amber fragrances have in common is that most of them are fragrances I look to wear in cooler weather, they are the fragrance equivalent of a comfy wool scarf for me even when the amber starts off edgy.
Liz Zorn who is the artist behind the Soivohle brand of fragrance has long been blazing her own path in perfumery. Her attention to detail and her dedication to using quality ingredients have resulted in a number of quite amazing scents emanating from her Ohio studio. A couple of fragrances that have really resonated with me are her take on vetiver in Underworld and her gorgeous study in oud, Oudh Lacquer.
When it came time for me to try her amber based fragrance Amberene, I was very much looking forward to seeing what path this talented perfumer would choose to take with this well-trodden note. Surprisingly the choice she has made is to out-Ellena, Ellena. Amberene feels like an Ellena scent as Ms. Zorn accomplishes much with the use of just a few notes a la M. Ellena. Yet this feels wholly like a Soivohle fragrance as it contains that quirky unusual feel that many of Ms. Zorn’s perfumes share.
The top of Amberene begins with a fresh breeze of cardamom over an amber note that seems like it is off in the distance. The lemony fresh feel of cardamom is soft against the promise of the amber to come. As amberene develops further on my skin and the amber picks up more intensity a sheer incense appears. In many fragrances the presence of incense will signal a change in character to a heavy fragrance. Surprisingly Ms. Zorn’s use of the incense note is kept so restrained that instead it comes off like an amuse bouche in relation to the amber. This keeps Amberene very much on the light side of things. The base also takes a note, vanilla, which is also found in heavy amounts in many other scents. As with the incense in the heart Ms. Zorn again attenuates the vanilla so it becomes support for the, now more forward, amber. The use of cardamom, incense, and vanilla as supporting cast for the central amber allows for Amberene to be this light refreshing fragrance that displays three distinct phases of development.
Amberene has excellent longevity and modest sillage. The longevity of all of Ms. Zorn’s fragrances is impressive considering the amount of natural materials she uses and Amberene is one of her longer lasting ones. This is an all natural fragrance
As I wore Amberene more and more the predominant description it raised in me was refreshing. Refreshing is not an adjective I would use when describing any other amber fragrances I wear. In many ways Ms. Zorn might have created the first amber fragrance I will look forward to wearing in the dog days of summer.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample received with purchase from Soivohle
– Mark Behnke, Managing Editor