Une Rose Chyprée (2009)
by Tauer

Well, I've had to revise this revise this review sooner than expected...! A few more wearings have given me an altogether different impression than I first had.

The top notes are a rather heavy, opaque citrus-geranium-rose, the accord reminding me strongly of palmarosa. There is something dark and oriental that seems to weigh down the top. The citrus notes are not of the effervescent cologne variety, and a head-to-toe darkness defines the fragrance. In the drydown, a rich naturalistic rose and geranium seem to merge with the smoky, syrupy amber note some have dubbed the "Tauerade", together with a spicy side that lingers on the edge of identification There is some moss in the base, but its not really detectable as an individual presence, rather it's a matte background on which the fragrance is layered on top of. Those familiar with the older Caron and Guerlain parfums will recognize the "feel". That being said, this is as much an oriental as a chypre, if not more.

On my skin, this acts very much like a parfum - great longevity; weak sillage. In fact, a little too weak for me, as it stays a skin scent after the first few hours.

Chypre Rose is easily my favorite Tauer creation, and I think its also his most complex and interesting fragrance to date. I see a steady evolution from the rather simple and brash Le Maroc, to the subtler and more well rounded Incense Rose, to this, a very refined and multifaceted treatment of the note.

I tried this yesterday, and I'm smitten. This is a comfort scent for sure. It is a gourmand to me, but not in the usual sense. You wouldn't actually want to EAT this, but it does make me think of chai, or vanilla steamers. Main notes are cinnamon, vanilla, and rose, incense base. Rose is almost in the background, despite the name. This is a fall/winter scent, I think, and yet I was very happy to be wearing it on a 90 degree day in July. I felt like someone had slipped me a feel-good drug, and I wanted to share it with everyone I came in contact with. I wanted to thrust my wrists under the noses of passersby, as it seemed selfish to hoard it. Wonderful stuff. Lasting power, great of course, although not as tenacious as LADDM. Amount of sillage, just right I think. Projects a wonderful sense of well-being. Lovely aura. In fact, it was the aura I enjoyed the most--I just kept smelling this gorgeous scent all around me, didn't feel the need to huff off my wrists.

Une Rose Chypree is gorgeous, and very difficult to describe.

There is so much going on that it is hard to capture, and yet the sum total of the olfactory experience is a serene study in elegance.

The only way I can think of to effectively describe Une Rose Chypree is to imagine a bunch of roses surrounded by other things that impact on them. The roses are always at centre stage, but each rose has taken on some of the characteristics of whatever nestles alongside it outside of the bunch of roses.

The first rose one encounters has cinnamon and bay nestled beside it, and it is a spicy rose. This smell is addictive.

After this comes a lush, juicy rose that has been in contact with the Clementine and the rest of the citrus. I would like to bite this rose to see how moist it is.

Following this is a smouldering rose, which is both hot and green from coming into contact with the geranium.

These three roses make up the top of the fragrance, but none of them disappear as the fragrance develops.

These first three roses have a sort of translucence about them, which makes it easy for them to mingle and meld in endless permutations.

Below these roses are far deeper and darker roses: there is an earthy rose that has been in contact with the patchouli and oak moss, a leathery rose that comes and goes, and a heartbreakingly beautiful honeyed rose that has absorbed lots of vanilla along with a little bit of everything else.

The translucent roses play together with the deeper and darker roses in perfect harmony, and the way they relate to each other changes with temperature and time.

You have to try this one!

The name had me expecting a floral chypre with a rose heart, but that’s not exactly what I’m smelling here. Instead, Une Rose Chyprée is a dark, sweet, and spicy floral-oriental with an especially deep, jammy rose note at its core. It reminds me very much of Nahéma, of Amouage’s two rose-based Lyric scents, and by dint of conspicuous cinnamon (and clove?) notes, of Frederic Malle’s Noir Epices as well. I’ll take the perfumer’s word for it that the basenotes include the chypre staples oakmoss and labdanum, but what I smell in there is mostly smoky vanillic amber.

Whether you consider Une Rose Chyprée a chypre or an oriental is of little account. What matters is the scent’s smoldering, crepuscular beauty. The attempt to describe its qualities sends me scurrying after new words for “dark.” Yet for all its profundity, there is a paradoxical clarity to Une Rose Chyprée’s structure. (A quality it again shares with Noir Epices.) In olfactory character it brings to mind the tolling of a deep, deep bell, or the entrancing velvety blue glow of the evening sky just before it goes completely black. I wouldn’t wear it during the day, and certainly not in hot weather, but I think I’d have to pay attention to any woman wearing this scent in my presence. Une Rose Chyprée joins L’Air du Desert Marocain among my favorites from the Tauer line.