Amouage - Interlude Man and Interlude Woman

Amouage is pretty great, I think we can all agree on that, and if we don't agree then I am very sorry but you are mistaken; and as proof I submit Interlude Man and Interlude Woman, two more in a long string of Amouage successes.

Let's start with the not-totally-batshit-insane one. Interlude Man is perhaps the best smoke fragrance I've ever smelled. By Amouage standards this is somewhat linear: there's a mild sweetness in the top, like sweet tobacco smoke, and then it's on to the very long-lasting and exceptionally realistic smoky drydown. If I find it a tad shy of true greatness that may be because it's not as odd or striking as the best Amouages, but this is very good and very well done.

Okay then so let's talk about Interlude Woman next, and holy fuck what is this? All of the weirdness that is missing from Interlude Man is here in spades, in double spades. Amouage claims this is the smell of chaos and boy howdy they are correct. The first time I smelled it I hated it. But then it kept creeping into my mind and I kept putting it on over and over again, trying to figure out how it works, this ungainly angular contraption made of fruit and coffee and incense and something sharp that I can't decipher. Now I own a full bottle of it and I still can't figure it out. There's an almost Lutensian sweetness in the top notes which can be very bad if done wrong (I am not a fan of Lutens in general) but here it stays just on the right side of grotesquery. Actually, the entire fragrance is a perfume game of chicken: just when you think the fruits and coffee are getting too out there, or that weird bitter note roars up out of nowhere and surprises you, Interlude Woman takes a sharp right-hand turn in the nick of time. Even by Amouage's high standards this is a complex, nigh-unparsable fragrance. Oh, and if you put it on, you'd better like it a lot because it is also one of the longest-lasting fragrances I've ever worn. Seriously, this shit is nuclear grade. Thankfully I love it.