Rubj by Vero Profumo

I've had samples of both the parfum and the EDP of Rubj for about a year now and even though I had preciously spritz them on from time to time ( sometimes layering them) over the year to enjoy them, I realized this morning that I had never looked up the notes to either or read any reviews of them. I decided to leave it that way to write this review because I didn't want to be influenced by any list of notes or anyone else's impressions of them. I say "them" because even though te EDP and the parfum are both Rubj, there are enough differences to give you two slightly different experiences. From the very beginning the parfum is a sweet and quiet skin scent that's so well blended that even as it deepens on the skin, I'm unable to pick out any individual notes. Slightly gourmand, it gives the inpression that someone has just passed you on the street eating a sweet pastry with a hint of anise. The EDP opens with a sharp citrusy/green blast and as it mellows on the skin, it becomes a soft, gourmand skin scent as well. But where the parfum gives you the feeling of the smell of a pastry caught on a cool breeze, the EDP gives you the sense of holding a warm, freshly baked, lemon cream-filled tart laced with lavender and anise right under your nose. at this point there is a kind of warm doughy note that makes me think of L'Artisan's Bois Farine in that "something just came out of the oven" way. In the middle, the parfum and EDP seem to reach common ground and you can tell they're related, but just briefly, because where the perfume remains more light and anisy and plays with the warm/cool dynamic, the EDP remains warm througout and for reasons I can't explain, starts to remind me of the basenotes in some of the vintage perfumes I love so much. Now, I'll go read the notes. On my skin the EDP is much mor intense than the Parfum. I love the way she plays with that warm/cool thing.

Parfum Extrait: Rubj takes a different path from most orange flower fragrances. Rather than sweetly fruity , it approaches top notes with a bitter and dry accord of petigrain-dominated citrus, an intriguing burst that is quickly swamped by a tsunami of clean, musky florals. The contrast of the two is enjoyable for the brief while it lasts, however. Once the heart arrives, Rubj delivers the main event, and it's one I don't find particularly appealing. I smell a white floral trio of orange-flower, jasmine, and tuberose, natural-smelling, yet somehow blanched and scrubbed into a puritanical cleanness bordering on severe. What redeems this accord here is a certain warmth, normally found in the flowers themselves, provided by the musk note that is the driving force of this fragrance. Deep into the base the flowers take their leave, and one can smell this musk unadorned. It's by far the most interesting element of Rubj to me, and unlike any other musk I know. It's warm but not dirty; clean but not soapy; creamy yet transparent, and daubed with ambrette. I seem to be one of the few people out there not in raptures about Rubj, but it's well worth trying if its in your price range and if a cleanly sophisticated floral sounds up your alley. However, if you'd like to smell something that's at least 90% similar to my nose, I strongly recommend Nivea Happy Time Orange Flower & Bamboo Milk body wash. No joke. Eau de Parfum: I find the eau de parfum a welcome change when compared to the parfum. In general it's less odd and more balanced, smoother and less linear. Gone are the flash-in-the-pan bitter top notes and the ambrette from the base, but in their place is a complex, appealing fruitiness that's honeyed, tangy, and faintly bitter in the vein of mango or passionfruit. What's right about the EdP helped me articulate what was amiss with the Parfum: there's a certain tendency in a number of orange flower fragrances ( Tom Ford's Neroli Portofino and Aqua di Parma Colonia Assoluta come to mind ) to sustain the orange blossom accord with loud, clean musks with epic longevity, a quality that charms at first ( "Hey, an orange blossom that lasts!" ) but grows tiresome on repeat wearings. The added fruitiness and reduced volume in the base turns Rubj into the fragrance I wanted it to be the first time around. If you want a smoothly pleasing yet not brain-dead fruity-floral, it would be hard to go wrong with Rubj eau de parfum, and certainly, its price per ml makes it much more viable for regular wear than the parfum.