Satellite Padparadscha

Padparadscha seems to have a bit of a cult following. I purchased a sample of this some time ago and have worn it a few times with mixed feelings. I bought this thinking it is an incense fragrance, but in reality it is more about spiced woods. The first half is all about pepper and cloves on my skin. You may know from previous posts that neither of these notes is a favourite of mine, at least not as the main player.  The notes listed are pepper, juniper, amber, musk, cedar and sandalwood. Padparadscha opens with a large dose of pepper. I mention cloves because the pepper note is so strong and fragrant that it smells like cloves to me. It is severe, dry and nose-clearing in its initial intensity. At this stage I always seem to have the urge to wash it off. Thankfully the pepper starts to reduce in intensity and as it does so, the fragrance sweetens and becomes almost mossy - perhaps that is the effect of the juniper. At this point Padparadscha wears quite feminine and is quite 'perfumey'. It feels a little like the love child of Piper Nigrum and Noir Epicees. Having said this, Padparadscha stills strikes me overall as quite dry and severe right into the early dry down. The dry down is where it all starts to come together for me. The pepper is now only a buzz in the background and the amber, musk and woods create  a nice balance, which in conjunction with the pepper wears almost like an incense scent. It's fairly subtle and diffused by this stage. It's just a pity, at least for me, that this doesn't happen sooner. Instead I have to wait at least a couple of hours before the pepper swat team retreats and lets the woods, musk and amber have a look-in.

Perhaps this is a slightly negative review. I don't mean it to be. I really want to like Padparadscha and indeed I do during the second half, but I can't help feeling slightly let down by the beginning; it's just not my cup of tea. In spite of this, don't let my ramblings put you off trying this. You might just find it to your liking, particularly if you enjoy black pepper in a perfume. Padparadscha is quite feminine in a way, especially the first half of development, but overall I didn't find it excessively so. I think a man can wear this, particularly with all the spices in play.

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Black pepper blues

Why the blues you ask? Well, I love black pepper in cooking - hardly a meal I cook or eat is without this now ubiquitous, but formerly precious, spice. Yet for some reason I find it a very difficult note to deal with in perfume. Not so much when it is well-blended with other spices, but when it is the primary focus of a fragrance. Two such perfumes with a heavy use of black pepper spring to mind, Piper Nigrum by Lorenzo Villoresi and Noir Epicee by Frederic Malle. Fragrantica list the notes for Piper Nigrum as watercress(!), mint, star anise, citrus and green notes, pepper, nutmeg, olibanum, petitgrain, clove, rosemary, spices, elemi resin, styrax, amber, benzoin, myrrh, peru balsam, virginia cedar and woodsy(!) notes. That's a list of notes for you! On my skin the top notes, in particular mint and citrus, are quite clear, and there is a definite greenness to it. However, after that it is predominantly a pepper scent on my skin and a lot of the other notes are lost. In fact, if I hadn't read this list, I probably would have identified very little other than perhaps the clove, incense and perhaps a touch of amber and myrrh. Piper Nigrum was one of the first perfumes I ever sampled and I've worn it quite a few times. It is a weird fragrance, strangely compelling, and the pepper is just bearable for me.

Noire Epicee's notes include nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, pepper, orange, geranium, sandalwood and patchouli. On my skin, this is a powerhouse of a pepper fragrance, dark, austere, severe, even melancholy, I find. It may seem strange, but I always feel every so slightly depressed wearing this. The spices are very intense, but ultimately, Noir Epicee smells to me like someone has savagely pounded a mortar-full of black peppercorns and rubbed the resultant powder all over me. I may like pepper, but I don't want to smell exactly like it. I have read that Noir Epicee has a chypre-like effect and I can see where this idea comes from. There is that austere effect that I often get from a dry chypre. I find Noir Epicee a challenge to wear, I really do, but I can certainly see people either loving or hating this. Try it for yourself. One thing is for sure, you won't be bored by it!

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