Hammam Bouquet (1872)
by Penhaligon's

This one reads as a classic, Victorian British fragrance all over it. Which is why it may be difficult for me to wear. This is a very powdery floral and rose fragrance from the get go and throughout. It wears pretty linear on me. It might sound feminine from that description, but I think it is totally masculine, but something I don’t think I can pull off. I appreciate it for its classic notes and reigning from the Victorian era, but all in all just not the right rose for me and I generally love rose based fragrances.

9th February, 2012.

The londiners noblemen used to smell like this one coming out from Piccadilly Hammam  baths.
This is the scent of Victorian age, of the decades of colonialism, of the colleges and of the diffusion of the British culture and civilization in the eastern exotic lands and all over the world.
Hammam Bouquet, alongside the diverse Blenheim Bouquet and English Fern, is the milestone of the Royal brand of Penhaligon's. This Victorian complex fragrance manages to be at once powdery and clean, manly and womanly, citrusy and soapy, kind of bath soap but clearly distintive,  traditional but surprisingly current. It's a slightly spicy semi-oriental rose scent. The rose is historical, imperial and gentle. The opening is citrusy and watery due to lavender but is not aggressive and harsh since the following musk, flowers and woods start to enter in their role in a while. I perceive immediately a dry musk and wood which disclose the bouquet of flowers. The flowers are british, a bit oldfashioned and potpourri with the rose playing the main role and jasmine engaged to impress a more pungent and sweet touch. The cedarwood from the heart starts impressing texture and consistence to the scent preventing that the musky-ambery base could exaggerate the soapy trait of the fragrance. The sandalwood in the base stresses the stable structure of the scent breaking a bit down resins and balsams. The outcome is a green, woody, edible rose scent with some soapy temperament. The bath soap trait is anyway determined by the interaction between musky-amber, cedar, some obscure spice and may be an hint of tobacco. You feel confortable, clean and concrete wearing this fragrance in a dry morning while wearing a tweed. This fragrance whispers mellifluous  cleanliness, nostalgia and tradition.

28th January, 2011. (Last Edited: 14th March, 2011.)

A spicy rose with great warmth. A nice choice for cold winter days. A touch of dirtiness, I suspect from jasmine. But this is really about a rose. I probably would only wear this 2-3 times a year, so I doubt I will buy a bottle, but I still would recommend it.

23rd January, 2011.

Hammam Bouquet is very difficult for me because the florals are so heavy and overpowering. Smelling it again, I don't find it as immediately "old lady" smelling as I did before, but I still doubt I could ever wear it. Most heavy masculine florals are unappealing to me, though, so if they're your thing then don't let me dissuade you. It reminds me of two Aramis scents...JHL, which is more leathery in a way that I don't like, and 900, which is a cleaner, more rose-centric scent (the one masculine rose I've found that makes sense to my nose!). I would take 900 over Hammam Bouquet or most others in the genre, but I still recognize the depths of HB's richness.

18th August, 2010.

Hammam Bouquet comes off to me mostly as spicy rose. It's a fantastic, natural rose at that. At first I was put off by the floral feminity of it and felt I could never wear this out in the world, but after about 30 minutes of constant evaluation I have become infatuated with HB. I can see 'dusty tomes,' 'old lady,' 'baby powder,' and all that. But before that I think 'fresh,' and 'pleasant,' among other things.
I'm young and attracted to all these older scents that don't seem to have a real (popular)foothold in today's scentscape. Was I born too late? Oh well. This stuff's great.

29th April, 2010.

After my second experiment with Hammam Bouquet, I feel it is a true classic, a landmark. When I first tried it, I had just been using and testing a lot of Guerlains. But HB is such a completely different concept, my nose could not get the floral notes out of the dark slate. The gray notes seemed to soak up the florals like dry slate would soak up any water splashed on it on a hot day. So all I got was a kind of skanky heat. Later, the rose began to come through, creating a very Victorian old-fashioned effect. Today, I got more floral notes at the opening, along with some whiskey. This time, the floral drydown was even richer, but still a far cry from the super-sweet Guerlinade I am used to. I find HB is even more mellow on clothing than on my skin. More of the fresh rose comes out, while on my skin it is more like rose potpourri. Just in the space of a few hours, HB has given me several moods that all go well with the mental image of hammam/harem, along with lots of oriental exoticism. Also, it seems pretty unisex, although for me, it also has a strong image of a proper gentleman--this might not work so well with jeans and sandals.

23rd February, 2010.