Aire Anthesis by Loewe

I liked it. It’s not the kind of perfume that turns your head, but it doesn’t need to be. Sometimes all I want is something that smells good, lasts, and feels like mine. And this is exactly that. If you’re into the vibe of Waterlily Tea Dress, the pre-sweet Kenzos, or that whole clean, aquatic, musky wave of the new millennium, this is a blind buy. For me, who loves that ‘clean’ vibe, I dove in headfirst. I’m glad to find it among tons of launches filled with honey, vanilla, and other cloying paraphernalia. It opens with a milky greenery where muguet dominates, but it’s not that cloying muguet with aldehyde aftertastes, like metallic milk; it’s an undefined white flower, like a green jasmine and night-blooming jasmine abstraction, without being too stripped. It’s supported by a cold, lactonic body thanks to the pear, which is there but doesn’t over-sweeten or take center stage. Maybe the rhubarb gives it a fruity, speedy spark, but nothing notable. There might also be that peony I hate making a presence with a toasted floral flash, but like the rhubarb, nothing. Then comes an herbaceous and resinous accord; in my innocence, I identified it as calamus or reed, now I see it’s heather. The accord is high in perception, but if you told me it was frankincense plain and simple, I wouldn’t have caught it. Aire Anthesis is light and pleasant: the muguet isn’t very muguet and the heather isn’t very heather, but the molecules recreating their scents are intensive, one like a water lily or lotus and the other like a reed. The pear assembles them with its savory milky quality. It’s a green aquatic floral with musky and woody aftertones that many will hate and others, me first, will love. I already know what my summer will smell like. UPDATE: After testing it on demand on my skin, the sour pear note stands out too much, which annoys me. Discarded. PD. The opening leans feminine but soon reveals itself as unisex. PD II. It doesn’t resemble Paula’s Ibiza at all. Not even a little. It does make me think very distantly of Un Jardin sur le Nil by Ellena, which is a gem. This could be a distant relative, much less loaded, fruitier, and, to put it plainly, flatter. PD III. I totally agree with Lux’s review.

A precious and lasting freshness of seeds and aquatic plants. It’s an aquatic herbal where labdanum is the clear conductor. To hell with those who like the transparency and freshness of scents that are never invasive or powerful; an aquatic something that brings lightness and quenches thirst without any lemon. Ice water and rich seeds. If you like Kenzo L’Eau and its green meadow full of dewdrops, you’ll like this.