opium | The Scented Hound

WHAT I SMELL: Opium opens with a spicy bang. It’s peppered with a sweet honeyed striking bite of cloves and cinnamon with hints of citrus. It’s almost overwhelming in its richness and depth. It makes my head swirl with the intoxicating jasmine and dare I say a bit of carnation which is a much hated note by me, but in this case it’s entwined with the other notes and doesn’t dominate. When I hold my arm close to my nose, the peppery spice notes almost burn the insides of my nostrils. There’s a slight smoky incense like layer on top of the floral spice giving it increasing depth. Opium is exotic, powerful and in charge. After a while the cascading full and rounded notes start to even out and Opium becomes dryer with more amber. At this point, Opium is still a spice bomb, but it ‘s now just a bit sweeter, but this is not sweet by any means. Opium never calms all the way down but becomes a bit more woody…it wants to be taken notice for hours and that’s just fine with me.

Opium Notes from Fragrantica:

Top notes are coriander, plum, citruses, mandarin orange, pepper, jasmine, cloves, west indian bay and bergamot; middle notes are carnation, sandalwood, patchouli, cinnamon, orris root, peach, lily-of-the-valley and rose; base notes are labdanum, tolu balsam, sandalwood, opoponax, musk, coconut, vanilla, benzoin, vetiver, incense, cedar, myrrh, castoreum and amber.

WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: Whoever named this perfume, named it perfectly. It’s intoxicating and habit-forming and I can’t get enough.

THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE OPIUM: mysterious, seductive, passionate

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT OPIUM: Kafkaesque, Perfume Fountain, Yesterday’s Perfume

BOTTOM LINE: Once again I can point the finger at Kafkasesque for leading me down the eBay path to buy this beauty. I think I have put some on now for the past 5 days in a row and I continue to fall in love with it. Now mind you, I think you can find some good deals on the EdT versions on eBay, but the vintage parfum is a bit pricier. Even though I paid a lot for this love, it was still a relatively good deal at the price I got. I have done some research and it seems that my version is from somewhere between 1995 and 1999.

Bone Rating: 5 out of 5 possible bones
Scent: Oriental Spicy
Nose: Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac
Classification: Feminine
Review based on vintage parfum
Expense: Varies on eBay

More ambers; more to love. This lovely perfume opens up with a rush of spice, I would say almost cinnamon in nature, along with a faint sweetness. Funny, my husband said that it smells like root beer. I can see that. That had me a bit worried. But once again, as time would tell, the scent transformed from that spicy blast to a nice and mellowed amber. This is neither harsh or medicinal, but an almost vanilla sweet, lightly spiced amber with great longevity. I would say that it leans a bit on the feminine side, but it is a scent that is close to the skin and therefore when walking through a crowd, no one would assume that a dowager is passing by. Light, sweet, subtle. A very nice amber indeed.

From the Profumum website:

Olfactory notes: Opium flowers, Amber, Spices