Roja Parfums
Roja Parfums
212 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Petitgrain and tarragon crash forward with herbaceous immediacy, supported by bright bergamot and a whisper of spearmint that feels almost medicinal in its clarity. For these first moments, Scandal smells almost like an upmarket aftershave—fresh, slightly austere, with lemon adding a piercing citric edge that catches the back of your throat pleasantly.
The transition reveals the fragrance's deeper character as jasmine emerges with unexpected savagery, its green, slightly indolic nature immediately complicating the fresh opening. Violet and May rose amplify this structural shift, the violet particularly lending a peppery, slightly dusty quality that makes the heart feel less like traditional florals and more like walking through a dried herb garden. By hour two, the spice—cardamom, clove, nutmeg—begins surfacing beneath the floral veil, creating a warm complexity that suggests expensive tobacco and leather absent from the listed notes.
The base settles into a dense, smoky woody composition where mossy cedar and patchouli create an almost chypré-like foundation, whilst the sandalwood and cashmeran provide creamy softness. Musk and ambergris blur the edges into something simultaneously warm and slightly cool, the tonka bean adding a subtle vanilla undertone that prevents the spice and wood from becoming austere. What remains is deeply personal—a scent that seems to exist primarily on your own skin, fading into intimate traces of spice and vetiver within four to five hours.
Scandal pour Homme presents itself as a gentleman's aromatic paradox—herbaceous and genteel on the surface, yet thrumming with spice and earthy restraint beneath. Roja Dove has constructed something deceptively sophisticated here: the opening salvo of petitgrain and tarragon suggests a crisp morning ablution, almost cologne-like in its brightness, but this herbaceous freshness is merely the prologue to something far more textured.
What makes this fragrance genuinely compelling is how the heart notes refuse to play the expected game. Rather than dissolving into soap, the Grasse jasmine and lily of the valley arrive with a distinctly green, almost slightly bitter character—these aren't powdered florals but rather flowers caught mid-bloom, with stems still clinging to them. The violet deepens this effect, adding a peppery, almost metallic undertone that prevents any hint of sweetness.
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