Aral - Un des sens

As you know I really like to discover perfumes that not "everybody else" all ready has written about. Sometimes that may depend on that the perfume itself isn´t something to write about, but as often it depend on that the particular perfume haven´t get stucked in the usual perfumista net.


I am usually quite updated with perfume releases in the niche genre, but not at all as updated when it come to mainstream perfumes. Still, I take the chanse to try A scent by Issey Miyake when we where in Norrköping. Floralgreen, fresh and airy with a pleasant and quite different earthy basenote, but not really my kind of perfume.


Anyway, now I sit here with a sample of the perfume (or eau de toilette) Aral - Un des sens
http://www.aralara.fr/


Catherine Lara is a french musician and singer. Quite big in France appearantly, but totally unknown for me. She have 25 music albums in the CV, one of them named Arala and wich the perfume Aral is named after.


I´m a embarrising sensitive person, because the perfume Aral makes me think a lot in musical terms. This is a perfume in minor, it´s kind of musical tuned down. A perfume with a surprisingly melancholy and depth.


Aral remind me a little of Thierry Mugler´s Eau de Star or Florascent´s Umami, but if Eau de Star is aquatic and Umami is a soft gourmand, Aral is a scent lovered in deep fog. I think of all the notes in Aral as distant and like it is a thin coat between me and the actual scent. I don´t know how to achive this in perfumery, but Aral is exciting and different.


The notes are classical orientals, warm and spicy. Cardamom, patchouli, amber, incense, vanilla, tonka and musc. But the scent reaches me as if I was on a trip trough a jungle in compact fog. Among hte oriental notes, there is also notes of sea alges, maybe that whats lend Aral is foggy, milky and opaque character?


I don´t find anything bright, strong, sweet or clear in Aral. It´s all the time subdued, adventurous, sensual and with a very captivating depth. Actually, it´s a celebrity perfume, but more of Miller Harris L'Air de Rien (Jane Birkin) or Etat Libre d'Orange´s Rossy de Palma, than anything with Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Jennifer Lopez.


Aral seem to be hard to get outside France, but since Catherine Lara isn´t that knowned outside France, I find it ok. Even tough I would prefer to find Aral at the shelf at the local mall rather then most other perfumes I find there. That is one thing I find so fascinating about France, and also Italy, any little town have a small perfume shop offering even the strangest perfumes. This would never be possible in Sweden!


Aral last pretty long on me for an eau de toilette, at least four hours. The sillage is discrete, this is a skin scent, easy to wear on any occation. As a scent, maybe not for the youngest audience, but apart from that a very good choise for anyone looking for something quite discrete but still very unique.


If you´re travelling to France I do recommend you to try Aral if you happen to stumble upon it. I think it´s possible to order a bottle trough the home page, even tough I think you have to contact them before if you are outside France.


Anyway, Catherine Lara can be very proud of this perfume!




Pic: diego gurgel, flickr