Un Jardin sur le Nil

I was really into niche fragrances: Maison Matine, Goldfield & Banks, Etat Libre d'Orange, you name it. But many of them felt like half an idea done hastily.

And I ran into this one. I ran into this one in an airport fragrance shop—yes, that’s how people like us, people who earn a MODEST wage, meet designer fragrances. Airport fragrance shops are horrible places to sniff new fragrances: they are loud, they smell complicated, you are tired, mostly likely sleep-deprived. But this one, on the first sniff, captured me like Donald Jumbo Trump did Maduro. I didn’t recognize the tangy scent at the time, but I did know that I’ll have plenty of time to figure it out with my new 30ml bottle of friend.

It turns out, to my pleasant surprise, that I didn’t have nearly enough time. The thing I like the most about Un Jardin sur le Nil—or as I like to call it, Death on the Nil— is that it’s quite linear and simple. Some people may see that as a disadvantage, but to me, that means if I like the opening, I’ll like the whole thing, so I can spray as much as I want (within budget) and it won’t be overly piercing or obnoxiously noticeable. I can even spray it on when I’m home! By the end of the trip, I had only half the bottle left. Not long after that, I finished my first bottle and bought a 100ml second.

But what does it smell like? I used to live in Guangzhou, a southern, subtropical seaside city. In the summers, which is more than half of the year, mangos are a street snack staple: you stop at a mango stand, the owner will wave their unstoppable unstopping knife to peel a green mango, slice it into chunks, before asking you what powder you want on it, sour plum or chili spicy. That is what Death on the Nil smells to me. But if that’s too abstract, I’ll tell you how I got complimented—for the first and only time—when wearing this on a date: it smells like a luxury department store.