Icon; D.S & Durga in the Alps
By Jo Phillips
The smell of fir is deep and green but once you really bury your nose in this new fragrance you will be thrilled by the way this fusion warms the scent of green freshness with a hit of warmth via cardamom, smooths and rounds it off with musk. But don’t think it is just that, it’s a whole lot more; a whole load of deliciousness captured in a bottle of Amber Teutonic by D.S & Durga.
As the label says it has Amber, or to be a little clearer, it is built around the mystic idea of Amber. Teutonic I hear you say? yes a German reference so think of those high hills covered with fir trees and you will begin to get the idea.
This, like all perfumes from the brand, is as much a fragrance as it is an exploration of time, place, feeling and thoughts. David and his wife Kavi don’t (thankfully) do ‘nice’ ‘comfortable’ fragrances, they explore through fragrance, and that is what makes them just so good at what they do. So this perfume is an exploration on the idea of Amber, something mystical primitive, something with a hit of sweet and is utterly mesmeric.
It starts as a cascade of green, woody green, then resinous green comes next and then spicy yet soft sweetness via the cardamom, which is one hell of an opening to a scent. You can almost smell the depth of time within it, the ‘fossiled’ suggestion of tree resin (which actually doesn’t smell of anything but in perfume is usually made up of vanilla with resins such as benzoin, copal, styrax or labdanum). Smell is closer, and you certainly get the inclusion of green mandarin which lifts, stopping the scent becoming too deep and damp.
Then comes peppery geranium leaf fused with wood via European Larch so now you really are rooted in the forrest but the sun is dappling through the leaves, it never feels cool even though in your head it may sound like it could. It almost has a feel of boozy dried fruit although it doesn’t have any but it has the richness and depth to it.
What ties it all together is its base where as mentioned before the musk sits. This not only rounds it off but almost explodes the whole perfume on your skin as it sits with the pine (not usually seen in a base of the perfume triangle) and Opoponax. Opoponax is a wonderful resin like oil a little like a myrrh or frankincense which defiantly brings the mystic biblical feel to this rather sumptuous fragrance.
If you are a lover of D.S & Durga’s cowboy grass then this is a definitely for you, and if you have never smelt it then you need to get down to Harrods and bury your olfactory system deep into this magnificent scent.
It is now available and if this is something that intrigues, then know that early next year they will release the second of their mystic amber fragrances – you just need to wait a little. But worry not since its coming soon and of course we will let you know when.
