Reviews of Sweet Oriental Dream
by Montale

Sweet Oriental Dream is probably the most satisfying and alluring loukoum scent I’ve come across so far! This gourmand is simply a delicious and intoxicating creation – I just can’t stop smelling my wrists!

The honey, vanilla, almonds, rose and cherries are so well blended that I can't really detect any rose. Yes, the opening is extremely sweet but this eventually settles down (and the drydown is very sexy).

The jury’s still out as to whether or not I would be able to get away with wearing this (as it smells more feminine than unisex), but a decant is at least in order. Personally, this is a major improvement on Serge Lutens’ interpretation of loukoum (i.e. less powdery and with greater longevity).

Utterly superb!

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[Original submission date: 25 May 2008]

After reading the reviews, I thought Sweet Oriental Dream would be very sweet with a lot of sillage. But on my skin the sweetness is tempered a lot by the smell of nuts. I can smell the rose only in the topnotes. The smell of nuts is there right into the ambery drydown. I sampled it in the winter and found it was not too sweet or overpowering, but it probably will be in warmer weather. I've never smelled nuts as a note in a fragrance before, so this makes Sweet Oriental Dream quite a unique smell for me. I like it and give it a thumbs up, but I won't be buying a bottle of it. It's a good scent, but not the kind of scent that I could pull of.

I can't add to the great reviews of the notes in the reviews below me. To me, Sweet Oriental Dream is one of the most unique vanilla/gourmands I've experienced. What makes it unique is the balance between sweet notes and nut/floral notes. There's something going underneath the vanilla that keeps me smelling my wrist constantly. After the opening this isn't sweet at all, and even though it's slightly on the feminine side of unisex, I wouldn't think twice about wearing it.

This brings to mind the old saying: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." I'm giggling as I write this because I have a story to help me plead my case for this scent. A smitten man recently spoiled me by taking me to Brennan's in New Orleans for the famous breakfast which included their trademark dessert "Bananas Foster" Since the dessert is prepared by your waiter right at the side of your table, you get to see the point where he douses the ingredients (ripe bananas, butter, brown sugar, etc.) with brandy (or was it rum?) and sets it aflame before pouring the piping hot mixture over French vanilla ice cream and serving you. We smiled with delight and satisfaction as we savored each spoonful (I'm going off on a romance novel tangent here, but this is all true). And as if that wasn't enough, when we finished, they brought us (compliments of the house) a single helping of the bread pudding with praline sauce and two spoons. When I first applied Sweet Oriental Dream, that day at Brennan's and all the wonderful smells created by those desserts immediately came to mind, so anybody who says that scents don't trigger memories is either lying or in denial. I KNOW that when he smells this he's going to think of that day too. This is a scent has a playful humor to it. Some scents should be vehicles for triggering memories and creating new olfactory experiences and Sweet Oriental Dream definitely does that. And, if it does nothing else it sends the signal that YOU'RE good enough to eat.

Wow! I'm wondering if my sample may have sat for a long time because it's thick and syrupy looking. But the frag is MAH-VELOUS on/for me. I love Orientals to begin with and they do well on my bod. SOD opens with honeyed vanilla (I get cherries too) with a hint of flowers and - yes! - tobacco!! It is rich and complex - with an ambery drydown that lasted a whole night. SOD does not remind me of any of the loukhoums I've tried (almost no almonds and no powder on me) and I GOTTA GET ME SOME!!!

As others put it, it has a good dose of rose and heliotrope with great longevity. (I have yet to see a short lived Montale for that matter). Very much in the same line with KM Loukhoum, SL Rahat Loukhoum, and LV Musk. On a side remark, the name of the fragrance is really very well chosen here: It is sweet, it is oriental, and it evokes sweet dreams.

Almonds and honey, not much rose, but mercifully not too sweet, either. Less distinctly almond than the Serge Lutens Rahät Loukoum. Gourmand without being cloying. I don't wear gourmands, not because I don't like them, but because they make me hungry. This is a good one.

With something like this I might actually learn to love gourmands. It is so sweet, but it’s a very rich, full, almondy sweet—unlike the thinner and cheap smelling syrupy sweet that I’ve found in most other gourmands. There is a lot of vanilla here, which is normally one of my least favorite notes in a fragrance; but for some strange reason, (the same reason applies to Pi) I quite enjoy it in this accord. Strangely, I can’t pick out the rose in Sweet Oriental Dream. Often I find the rose note oppressive, and seldom do I find it elusive; but here it is melded so well with the honey, vanilla, and almonds that I can’t identify it. It will take me a while to decide if I actually want to smell like this, but what a beautiful experience this fragrance is. I can put this review in one word: ‘Wow!'

Just a tad hectic in the top notes, but dries down to some honey and beeswax absolute with a bit of flowery goodness. A+ Scent.

if you like loukhoum by keiko mecheri or the lutens loukhoum creation you will probably like this ,in my opinion the best gourmand ever created