We never made it to Halong Bay – or the Perfumed Pagoda : instead we had one of the best days of our life in Haiphong. Still, it is easy to understand how a Spanish perfumer could fall in love with this mystical Vietnamese legend with its ocean -reflected mountains and write a perfume formula as an ode to a place he felt at home.
Dulcet sweet, airy and light, this translucent oriental white floral is a fresh gardenia/ magnolia / lily interwoven with a semi-aquatic top note of lotus flower exuding a watery facet delicately tinged with eucalyptus, dill seed, lemongrass; a gentle white musk accord laced with benzoin and amber that shines through the vulnerable flowers like a bead of sweat on a lover’s skin.
Halong Heaven – a naive, romantically unhindered jeune fille of a perfume – exists in a very high key of unreality. Some might find it hysterical ; I find it pretty. True prettiness is underrated in perfumery these days; there are so many dreadful, supposedly ‘pretty’ perfumes out there in the commercial world and beyond that actually have unnaturally vicious teeth. Halong Heaven is slight – it does not dazzle – but it also does linger quite persistently in an opalescent dream-like state of white sheets and skin shadows, replete – as the fan on the ceiling whirs slowly above; torpid in the stillness of afternoon.
The Black Narcissus 
Love reading your posts as always. Your beautiful writing style and photography is something I always look forward to!
Thankyou.
I had a great day today ; a massive perfume haul, then sat in my favourite park for hours in the sun and the shade, happy as Larry before an enjoyable evening of teaching.
SO glad to be out in the world again, even if the only travel I can do is through perfume and memory like this.
Halong Heaven is no monument, but it is certainly very charming. You could become obsessed with somebody who wore it.
So glad you had a great day! (And hopefully evening too – even though you are working!) It just makes you appreciate things all the more and when lockdown finally eases we won’t know what to do with ourselves – that will be a sensory overload!
Exactly. Both are / were anxiety inducing, but the contrast is fantastic.
Sometimes it’s not a monument that hits the spot, but something pretty and fresh and interesting like this. You describe it irresistibly.
I know you know what I mean about pretty. All those risibly nasty chemicals in a harsh blend of horror like Dior Joy ( find it hard to even write those words).
This feels more harmonious, alluring
Oh, you have made me want this so much. I am going to try to find it online now.
It might be too simplistic sweet teenager for thee, and I wonder about the aquatic aspect. Might be nice on a hot day when you feel like a girlish romance.
I’m going to order their sample set and give the scents a try. I do still feel like a coquettish ingenue at times.
I don’t doubt it for a second! Me too