Lux by Mona di Orio, 2006

Lux is a moving scent for its progressive aroma and for the story behind its creation - Mona di Orio's tribute to her mentor Edmond Roudnitska - quite beautiful in many ways . Lux meaning 'light' in latin but also I feel this scent is about the marriage or union of opposites. Light and dark, masculine and feminine , happy and broody and so it goes on.This scent IS yoga- a union. It begins light and ends dark ,it is both male and female ,it 's both uplifting and thoughtful . It starts intensely citrus yellowy -lemon with hints of lemongrass and slowly moves through to green with vetiver. The basenotes and the dry down are simply superb with rock rose or labdanum ,vanilla, musk and amber. There is so much depth of feeling in this. Now I have to say that Lux ,though gorgeous, is not very original. It smells like Shalimar and somewhat similar to Le Labo Labdanum 18 - in the dry down . The lemony ,vanilla feel and the sexy lingering basenotes. Lux's vanilla ,to me, is slightly sweeter , a little more gourmand than the special burnt vanilla of Guerlain. The middle notes of Lux remind me of Eau Sauvage by Edmond Roudnitska. Benjamin at the Harrods' Haute Parfumerie said that Lux is Mona's finished version of Roudnitska's Eau Sauvage so it is closely related. It's Eau Sauvage with a lasting base - when that was explained to me, I understood the scent more. To me, it's also Shalimar and Eau Sauvage joined - what a combination ! Longevity is also very good - the labdanum stays and stays especially on hair . The bottle is quite something with heft. Love this. Well done .

Beautiful citrus opening rich, semi-sharp, full-bodied, lemony; I think the high quality comes from the use of bitter orange and Petitgrain; the lemon note is full, rich, and excellent and not at all lemon drop at this point. This is about as opulent of a citrus opening as Ive experienced. In my mind, citrus doesnt normally lend itself to opulence, but, in the case of Lux, opulent is the proper term. But my success with this fragrance ends with the opening. I find the movement from the citrus top to the wood middle is a bit clumsy: It spends too much time in that no mans land between the diminishing of the citrus top and the recognition of the woody / powdery middle. The citrus handles its decrescendo properly (it never completely disappears through the run of the scent) but the woods dont seem to know how to operate on my skin. The woods develop nicely on paper, but the quality doesnt transfer when the fragrance hits my skin I lose about everything except the remnants of the opening citrus. On paper, the beautiful amber / musk drydown is going strong twenty hours after application. On my skin I have never achieved a decent performance of the middle and base notes through seven wearings the fragrance is gone in an hour. Mona di Orio Lux just doesnt like me.

Upon testing, Lux immediately jumped into my top 10 list. It is amazing. The development on my skin is one of the most dramatic I've experienced. It starts off incredibly sharp with a rush of bitter notes. The petitgrain is very pronounced in the topnotes. It takes well over an hour for these topnotes to mellow on me. I've not experienced longevity like this from topnotes in any other scent. As it dries, the amber takes center stage. This is a warm, rich, full and addictive amber. Not quite as "plump" as MPG's amber in Ambre Precieux, and not very sweet, but very good in its own way. The toned-down but still slightly bitter topnotes now act to buffer the slight sweetness of the amber, and the scent has a near perfect balance of sweetness and bitterness. As it reaches the basenotes, it picks up a complex powderiness. I don't mean to make this scent sound simple or streamlined, because I get the feeling it is complex, but the notes mix so well that the only ones I can pick out are petitgrain and amber, and that's only until it reaches the base, which to my nose smells like one whole note - powdery, warm, rich - glowing like a west coast sunset. Sillage is just right; enough that I can smell it, never so much as to be noxious. Longevity is astounding. The scent lasts well over a day on me. It actually was still present on my skin at the end of the next day, even more present than the Tabarome Millesime that I wore that day (on different spots of course). This is a must test, and bottle-worthy for me.