How Badly Do You Want It?*

In the case of Ta'if, very badly indeed.

[With a bow to Robin, whose blog http://nowsmellthis.blogharbor.com/ today features an interview with Ormonde Jayne's Linda Pilkington, the perfumer responsible for my favorite fragrance in all the world ...]

This heartbreakingly beautiful fragrance is named for the Ta'if damask rose from Arabia (Ta´if, a town rising 5000 ft above the Red Sea overlooks the Arabian desert and is famous for its rose plantations. A rose plantation. Can you imagine?).

Notes are: top -- pink pepper, saffron and dates; heart -- rose oil, freesia, orange flower absolute and jasmine; base -- broom and amber.

The Ormonde Jayne site proclaims the perfume "intoxicating and audacious." To me, it is magical and contradictory. This is a non-sweet, nearly herbaceous rose scent with none of the saccharine qualities most often associated with the floral.

Its saffron, pink pepper, tree resin and broom notes differentiate it, affording unexpected richness and depth. There is also a darkness to this scent, nearly a blood-warm quality (and those who like this sort of thing may also find Czech and Speake's Dark Rose appealing).

The emotional pull of this has everything to do with its ability to transport you. It's rare that a perfume has such a strong persona that yours bends to it, rather than the reverse. But this is true of Ta'if.

In my mind at least, I become dangerously seductive -- who knows what I'm capable of, in the realm of this wonderful scent?

*quote, completely out of context, from Gracie Allen