Oriens arrived in the post today and I've given it a full work out. The opening is extremely sweet. My spontaneous thought was, This is not for me. However, I put judgemental thoughts aside. After all, Chinatown also has an extremely sweet start, but simmers down to something much more complicated. And in some ways Oriens is similar. The sweet beginning belies the complex notes to come.
OsMoz describes Oriens in the following way: Top notes — raspberry, mandarin and cassis. Middle notes — Sunny notes and jasmine. Base notes — patchouli and praline.
The overall tone of Oriens is pretty sweet. However the initial sweet blast of the opening does give way to something much softer. The jasmine completely passes me by, but the drydown is praline through and through.
Oriens is a sweet gourmand fragrance. The packaging is sumptuous. Ultimately, my initial sentiment was right — it is too sweet for me. I'm rarely drawn to a sweet fragrance unless it's laced with a spicy, resinous or bitter note. But Oriens is a grown up alternative to Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb.
