Kohdo Wood Collection: Dark Amber & Ginger Lily by Jo Malone, 2008

Before testing it for the first time nearby the Bangkok airport i expected it was a more compelling, deep, dark and dreadful juice while i stumbled in to something delicately floral, smooth and silky as the oil. Anyway for not more than twenty minutes the juice is a bit fruity, gingery and barely dusty/incensey but in a while it slides towards a sort of silky ambery/floral delicacy. This is an extremely silky/floral delicious amber indeed, with an initial spicy/gingery cool chord soon morphing towards a really delicate final creaminess . The beginning is dusty fresh because of a sparkling ginger and a cardamom/incense/nutmeg spicy accord for a while cloudy and airy. A starring floral presence mastered by an heady lily of the valley starts to take the stage in order to escort the smell towards the final woody and ambery suede that is barely leathery and just a bit shadowy (not a real dark one to me as well as Pomegranate Noir for instance). The juice is smooth, discreet and almost edible with all those culinary and yummy elements. Too much shy to be a real night out winner but pleasant for sure.

The opening has a wonderful green, translucent woods, as Odysseusm describes very well. I also get the hint of ginger and the scent develops into a beautiful, slightly sweet sandalwood then woodsy dry down that somehow retains a cool bite throughout. I really love this scent because it's warm and comforting yet has a sheer, cool translucence and dark spice, tang and hint of floral hovering at it's edges that keeps it interesting and changing subtly. It's very elegant, doesn't shout and lasts well on my skin. A perfect everyday scent. I wish I had more than the little bit given to me by a friend.

The ginger & cedar in the opening come across as bright & lively, but the ginger irritates my nose a little, & it takes 90 minutes before l detect anything floral. Even then it's faint, & more like tuberose than lily to me. Another 30 minutes later the amber base shows up, but it's quiet & woody, not sweet or vanillic at all. On subsequent wearings l like this a little more, but only on very cold days, & it smells vaguely similar to Sheer Obsession, which l already have. l'm giving this a neutral because l didn't get the expected lily note.

Notes: black cardamom, orchid, kyara wood (a type of agarwood/oudh) This scent is part of the JM Kohdo Wood Collection (Limited Edition). Kodo: (Japanese, the way of incense) is a Japanese incense ceremony. This is an attractive wood-incense scent. It starts with green, translucent notes which suggest a tropical forest. The cardamom gives a slightly sweet, spicy aspect. There is a ghostly silver trail of incense smoke which lurks in the background. The dry-down gets pleasantly woody, with cedar being the major element and a minor brightening from the agarwood. This is lovely and warming on a cool day.

Great scent rom Jo Malone I honestly cannot get enough of this scent, it is perfect for the fall and winter.
I have like 5 samples of this and would really like to get a bottle so if anyone is selling one please let me know thanks

Just got a bottle. Definitely my favorite Jo Malone. Enaf said.

interesting is what I say about this scent...very seductive...perfer it on my female counterpart...but can work on me....only in the winter..and if I am in the mood for it....would I buy this again?...yes...but almost to spicy for me...I prefer jm pom over this but still give this a buy

I agree with terrypitts and an_oud_girl - it's like finding flowers in a slightly autumnal forest. Terrific winter scent! I think it might be a tad too floral to be truly unisex. It's still on sale at Jo Malone shops in the UK, last time I checked.

The more I try the Jo Malone line the more I realize that purity and clarity are not what I seek in a scent. At first whiff, I really disliked this. There seemed to be two quite distinct layers - one a kind of brutish amber, the other an undefinable, overripe floral (obviously the "ginger lily" half of the equation). But after a short while to two converge into something delightfully woody and musky with nice floral hints. I can imagine walking through a very old growth forest filled with fragrant wildflowers. I am growing to like this scent, but I'm not sure I'll ever love it. Jo Malone seems to embody a kind of post-modernist approach to scents: a genuine commitment to ingredients with little concern for predetermining the outcome. Instead of an omniscient perfumer, there's a predilection for letting the user be "interactive" by encouraging layering.

I love it. This is a beautiful treatment of lily-- not honey-sweetened, not ripe and lush, but elevated to something bright, weightless and almost pungent by spicy ginger. I don't find amber to be much in evidence until well into the drydown, but it is quite exotic, especially when the incense comes forward. Yet, I wouldn't call this scent "dark." The incense isn't brooding, the lily not funereal. This to me is a beautful summer fragrance; serene and uplifting. It reminds me of visiting a Japanese garden on a warm afternoon, sitting in an azumaya shaded by surrounding cypress trees, watching the koi investigate brightly hued fallen leaves from Japanese maples floating on the surface of a sun-dappled pond.