FOUR JAPANESE ROSES ; SPICE OF LIFE by SHIRO (2019), ROKU by HINOQI (2022) + OSAJI WILD ROSE COLLECTION no 9 + 18 (2023)

There is no flower more prevalent in Japanese perfumery than rose. While osmanthus (still to flower in my front garden; almost two weeks late!) inspires a lot of seasonal limited edition perfume solids and hand cremes and the like, is generally beloved as a scent choice, other flowers don’t quite scale the same echelon. I have smelled some interesting lilies on women recently; tuberose very rarely (Diptyque’s aquatic Do Son is undergoing a resurgence at the moment due to clever marketing by the brand but trumpeting garish and animal white florals barely make the grade, at least in public). Peony, sometimes. But No. Rose is the go to. Rōzu. Bara. (Aesop’s Rōzu, all heavy and rich, incidentally, is also becoming popular; in fact the brand has just opened two spacious stores in two of the main department stores in Yokohama, where scent and ‘aroma’ in general seems to be in a boom period, particularly when the perfumes in question are natural). In many ways a welcome trend – I can happily substitute the brassy crude western current vanilla chemical florals for the more deeply reverberating tones of sandalwood and Atlas cedar as a contemporary representative trope, even if – sorry, I am never satisfied, am I? – there is something that grates about the slightly self-righteous home spun mama hair in a just so top bun aspect to some of these boisé botanical concoctions that makes me want to run off pleadingly back to Serge Lutens.

At least with the current vogue for more ‘wellness-inducing ‘ woody perfumes, scents that may actually have true aromatherepeutic elements in them that relax the wearer (and those around them), we are thankfully a million miles away from the hurlsome wave of synthetic roses commuters were forced to endure for a while a few years ago when the noisome Eau Des Quatre Reines by L’Occitane, definitely in my most hated perfumes of all time hall of fame and an acolyte of the equally repellent Eau Chloe (and all the other Paul Smiths and Valentinos and ‘Lanvins’ and god knows what else that followed in their post-Calvin Klein Escape we will never forgive you) wake, all hideously ruled the airwaves for far too long with a nauseating prissiness that made you yearn for anosmia.

Very in-all-the-magazines and of-the-moment-being talked about domestic brand Shiro (‘white’ in Japanese) is always heaving with customers in its Lumine concession in Yokohama trying out its high end diffusers and room sprays, body milks and cool preparations, as well as its sensibly sized range of well put together fragrances (all quite nice, with a certain edge to them that allow them to avoid the predictable banalities). I have hovered around perhaps my favourite, Spice Of Life twice now, wondering whether I want it or not: a rose-based spice perfume of ginger and cloves, cardamon and cinnamon over woods that is aromatic, dense, a little sweet, possibly a little patronizing – it has a certain middle class, snug sense of superiority – but also with an incensed, patchouli-ish edge that also reminds me of the original, to die-for Patchouli for L’Occitane, whose demise it is difficult to write about without feeling a little sad. In any case, while not by any means a rose soliflore (none of the perfumes I am reviewing today are), there is something about this rose spice that keeps magnetizing me back to it. We shall see.

Osaji is a brand with all the requisite built-in ambiguity required in the current ‘enigmatic’ style, and I have already bought two of their narcissus blends and wondered about their violet and hinoki and incense perfumes as well; there is always a backdrop of something powdery and curious and hotspring-onsen soapiness, a certain autumnal shadowiness to their perfumes that is quite appealing (and not too expensive). With the recent more niche-ish Wild Rose Collection, the prices are tripled, but so is the dressiness. While the ‘daytime’ collection I bought might be good for a Zushi-based organic housewife picking up the kids on her bicycle after a ‘vegetable plate’ lunch at a typically chichi farmer’s market style cafe with her well to do paisleyesque friends, the wild roses are heavier, more brocaded, more dressed up, with a certain sense of expectantly tasteful occasion.

No 9, billed as a ‘balsamic rose’, is a very nice, plush and rounded frankincense perfume with rose benzoin accents and ylang pepper frillery, but this scent is ultimately all about the play between a very warm and lilting olibanum resin and the wild rose oils used in the blend; I want to try this one on skin. No 18 is more baroque and kaleidoscopic-complex, with bright spices and citruses and rose accents playing off sandalwood, cedarwood and patchouli – I was almost reminded briefly of the Italianate style of men’s perfumes like Ungaro III here; vivid and confident, this is one for the rucola and wild chives brigade who also visit the opera.

I posted a wildly appreciative review earlier in the year of Tokyo based Hinoqii’s powdered temple incense perfume Zukoh, all dreamy and spicy, user friendly and subtly pre-yoga, but the brand also has three quite interesting fragrances in its portfolio, all 100% natural, all centred around the Japanese cypress tree oil, hinoki.

When I first tried these perfumes on skin in the summertime (I will review Kei and Rei in forthcoming posts) I was totally not in the mood for them. Hinoki is very terpentinic and sharp in many ways; deeply autumnal and pine-needley, almost antiseptic, and that kind of smell just doesn’t always suit my frame of mind, particularly when I am just lusting after gardenia.

At the same time, I do love this kind of smell. Hinoki essence is inherently purifying; you can feel it cleaning and clearing the air around you, both literally and emotionally/ spiritually, and though Roku (“A dusky iridescent sky flowing into the forest foothills, where clear rivers and mountains mysteriously meet”) has an initially quite strange combination of hinoki, shiso (perilla), fresh rose notes and citric yuzu in its opening salvo, one that puts you gently and elegantly somewhere you are not sure of – in itself a recommendation – on skin, the blend then gently dries down to an exquisite incense/vetiver note, deeply earthy and dry, like the male dry scatch of a Buddhist monk’s kimono; something private, reflective; redeeming.