Samaha

Samaha, meaning tolerance and magnanimity in Arabic, is a modern Venus on a Half Shell. Picture a bosomy bouquet of freshly-cut flowers emerging from a fine misting of sea spray, and then wrapped in a cloud of soapy floral musks and the steamy vapors of feminine bathing rituals. Like its antecedents, Amouage Gold or Madame Rochas, Samaha is a classically feminine scent that manages to be refined and faintly suggestive at the same time. Flirting with the line between freshly-scrubbed and richly suggestive, it channels the classic triad of Grasse-grown jasmine, rose, and neroli through the red velvet corridor of a Parisian boudoir. There are no aldehydes here, nothing fusty or old-fashioned, and yet its perfumey cloud of abstract flowers and bathroomy musks clearly draws on a French tradition of perfumery. The key difference is the salty, lemony radiance that suffuses the structure with air and light ? Samaha is full-bodied, but light, like the fluffiest floral lemon chiffon cake you can imagine.