There is only one perfume house totally dedicated to the Rose, and it is Les Parfums de Rosine. I previously reviewed its beautiful Clair Matin. One of the house’s classic fragrances is Rose d’Amour, which Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez gave four stars in their book Perfumes: The A-Z Guide (referring to the 2006 version, the one I have).

They describe it as a rose chypre and it is a slightly old-fashioned one. Fragrantica lists it as a floral aldehyde, which is accurate. It has a strongly greenish tinge, which I love. It’s not Chanel No. 19, it is its own lovely self, but it does remind me of that classic. Rose d’Amour opens with aldehydes and galbanum, the latter being one of my favorite notes. The notes list also includes ginger and bergamot as top notes, but I smell no ginger and only, maybe, a hint of bergamot. Warning: if you dislike aldehydes, you may not like this opening. I do like it. Have I mentioned that I like aldehydes?

The middle notes are listed as rose oil, iris, jasmine, red berries and narcissus. Base notes are described as nutmeg, oak moss, pepper, and vetiver. It takes a while for any of those heart notes to emerge from the cloud of aldehydes! The floral heart is lovely. Iris, rose, and jasmine are blended seamlessly, so that one of the trio does not dominate, even the eponymous rose. This stage reminds me of Chanel No. 5, actually, with its rose/jasmine/iris heart. At this point, the rose is a little soapy, as one would expect with the aldehydic opening, but soapy like a soap bubble, light and frothy, and floating off the skin.

Then the oak moss arrives — hurray! And the 2006 Rose d’Amour formula is from 2006, before recent limits were placed on oak moss in fragrance. So it ARRIVES. I love it. But it’s not overwhelming; my husband describes Rose d’Amour as “subtle.”

Okay, I love Rose d’Amour, the “rose of love.”  How do you feel about “floral aldehydes”?