XerJoff
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The first spray delivers a burst of zesty lemon and green petitgrain that lasts approximately thirty seconds before orange blossom muscles its way to the forefront, rich and narcotic. There's a soapy cleanliness competing with indolic warmth, creating an intriguing push-pull between propriety and sensuality.
Jasmine sambac arrives in full bloom, its banana-skin creaminess merging with rose's syrupy facets whilst acacia adds honeyed density. The tobacco flower begins to emerge here, its clean, almost cosmetic quality enhancing the powdery nature of the florals rather than introducing darkness. This is the fragrance at its most unabashedly lush, a white floral lovers' fever dream.
The composition settles into a soft, skin-like whisper where amber's warmth and cedar's dryness finally temper the floral exuberance. Patchouli shows itself as the faintest earthy shadow, whilst a ghost of that tobacco flower lingers, keeping things from turning entirely into talcum powder. What remains is elegant, diffuse, and surprisingly intimate given the bombast of the opening hours.
Oesel is a study in floral opulence wrapped in powdered velvet, where Richard Melchio orchestrates a collision between Mediterranean brightness and old-world boudoir intimacy. The opening promises citrus transparency—Paraguayan petitgrain's slightly bitter, woody freshness dancing with lemon—but the orange blossom has other ideas, flooding the composition with its indolic, heady richness almost immediately. This isn't a polite soliflore; it's a full-throttled white floral arrangement where jasmine sambac's creamy, almost rubbery facets intertwine with Bulgarian rose's jammy depth and acacia's honeyed sweetness. The effect is simultaneously fresh and enveloping, like walking into a conservatory where the blooms are so abundant the air feels thick with their exhalation.
What keeps Oesel from tipping into cloying territory is that persistent petitgrain backbone and the gradual emergence of tobacco flower—not the dark, boozy leaf, but something cleaner, slightly herbaceous, with a soapy-floral character that amplifies the powdery aspects. The amber here reads more as a textural element than a resinous weight, creating a soft-focus halo around the florals whilst cedarwood and a whisper of patchouli provide just enough structure to prevent the composition from floating away entirely. This is for the fragrance enthusiast who finds Serge Lutens' florals too sharp, Frédéric Malle's too austere, and wants instead something pillowy and enveloping—though still recognisably luxe. It's boardroom-ready white floral drag, unisex in theory but undeniably femme-leaning in its sumptuous sweetness.
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