Fetish pour Femme (2012)
by Roja Dove

The meaning of a word or expression is not so important in the stupid world of perfume! But also the way in which a word or expression or situation can be interpreted is not the focus of a niche perfume. At least this seems to...
First I have to admit to deprecate this brand that makes a concept worthy of luxury, thinking that the rich people is without culture.
The theory of animism and anthropological fetishism becomes a good instrument for perfumers to explain fundamentally the psychological background of perfume creation. In fact when the perfumer creates puts a part of himself in his creation, a bit 'of his soul, hoping that his artistic concepts and feelings can become an inner link with those who will use his fragrance. This is a way to understand fetishism, because anthropological concept of fetishism suggests switching the religious connection between God and people onto the connection between people and religious material symbols. So the perfumer is God for people and his creation, even if is an object, is a symbol. In fact, fetish is a thing or an object, which, according to the beliefs or psychological attitude of a person, has a supernatural influence, power or abilities, or from the other point of view, a thing which has supremacy over people. However there is a different way to create a more intimate fetish worship: it is replacing God in creation even of the object. For example by adding the scent with something strictly personal as his own urine. Ops! I'm talking about the only one fetish concept in perfumery: Peety, in which your pee is the only reason of the scent, which does not exist and will never be complete without it. So, could be the “magic” an ingredient? Of course, cause fetishism is the condition of belonging to such mental or conscious dependency. In other words, a fetish is an entity, which attracts unusual, anomalous attention of a person, and drastically dominates in the perception of the situation. Correspondingly, fetishism is a tendency to focus on special things and entities (ingredients?) and to surrender such one-sided perception of the environment, which decreases the influence of other entities in surrounding system of objects. What is Dove creation? It is an intellectual illicit! It is a perfume without any reason to exist. It is an easy way to make business anchored in gaudy ideas of marketing and communication. In other words it is a scent that has not passed the second stage on Sigmund Freud’s theory, the anal stage! According to this theory, the child begins to toilet train, which brings about the child's fascination in the erogenous zone of the anus. Freud believed that parents should promote the use of toilet training with praise and rewards… So let’s use this perfume in the right way!
This scent is an illusion of luxury, capability and art...

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."
Sigmund Freud

This reviewer may have conflicts of interest

Fetish (Parfum) opens with an orange-green citric petitgrain with significant ashy green oakmoss support before quickly moving to its heart. As the composition moves to its early heart the ashy green oakmoss takes the fore for an hour or so, gradually ceding the starring role to very leathery castoreum rising from the base that grows in intensity as time passes, supported by hints of cinnamon, deep clove and a subtle, primarily tuberose driven white floral accord. During the late dry-down the leathery castoreum fades as restrained cedarwood is unveiled with the remnants of the oakmoss turning slightly powdery in support through the finish. Projection is good and longevity slightly above average at about 10 hours on skin.

Fetish (Parfum) was a composition I sampled without any expectations one way or another. The "Pour Homme" version was supposed to be a big leather composition along the lines of Puredistance M, but I found it more woody than leathery in truth. After the surprise with its "Pour Homme" counterpart, I really wasn't expecting the significant leathery castoreum focus of the mid-section of Fetish here, but that is exactly what I got. What I also found surprising was the amount of ashy oakmoss found in the composition. In this age of dreaded IFRA restrictions, I honestly don't know how the folks at Roja Dove pulled it off. The ashy oakmoss and leather really work well together in Fetish, though I have to wonder if the composition marketed to Women could have easily been marketed more as unisex (or dare I say even as a masculine). If there is any real minor deficiency (apart from the above average performance metrics that are less than I would expect from a high quality parfum concentration), it would have to be in the late dry-down as the natural cedar driven finish smells excellent but is nothing new. All-in-all, I think I prefer its Pour Homme counterpart, but Fetish (Parfum) is largely successful as a very classically structured chypre with top-notch ingredients that one might have expected was released before IFRA meddling. The bottom line is the $480 per 50ml bottle Fetish (Parfum) could use a bit more oomph with its performance metrics (and a lower price point), but it represents a largely successful blast from the past that will appeal to Men and Women alike, earning a "very good" 3.5 stars out of 5 and a solid recommendation.