Roja Parfums
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The artemisia cuts through first—that slightly bitter, herbaceous green note—followed immediately by a cool, almost effervescent bergamot and grapefruit combination that feels almost effusive in its brightness. Within minutes, blackcurrant begins its emergence, dark and dense, suggesting something far less innocent than a typical fruity opening.
The heart transforms into something genuinely baroque, with strawberry and raspberry joining blackcurrant in a thick, almost compote-like sweetness that violet threads through with unexpected sophistication. Orange blossom and rose add floral depth without softening the fruit's core intensity; instead, they create a complex, slightly creamy texture as spice notes (cardamom particularly) begin their ascent from below.
The oud finally claims dominance, but it's integrated rather than dominating—working alongside birch, cedarwood, and that creamy cashmere wood base to create something warm and resinous. The musk, patchouli, and labdanum settle into a soft amber-woody embrace where traces of the original blackcurrant still linger, ghost-like, on skin.
Roja Dove's Fruity Aoud presents a calculated paradox: a fragrance that weaponises fresh citrus and orchard fruits against one of perfumery's most challenging materials. The bergamot and grapefruit open with characteristic brightness, but they're merely the Trojan horse for what unfolds beneath—a dense, almost baroque heart where blackcurrant and strawberry achieve an unusual candied intensity, their jammy sweetness tempered by violet's slightly dusty, slightly green intervention.
This is not a fruit fragrance that fades into abstraction. The blackcurrant persists with unusual tenacity, refusing to dissolve into the woody-amber base that materialises around the two-hour mark. Instead, it creates friction: tart berries against warm oud, which announces itself not as the typical animalic leather some associate with agarwood, but as something closer to incensed wood—the oud here reads almost medicinal, almost aromatic, shaped significantly by frankincense and that generous cardamom note.
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4.2/5 (111)