“Rose America” is a wonderful rose fragrance, fresh from the sea, a little bit salty and still dripping wet.
I already wrote a few reviews about rose scents. Sometimes it’s surprising to learn about own’s own preferences. I had always though I’d bore readers to death with gourmand vanilla scents week after week. It seems more to be a rose petal addiction here.
As I tend to say, this rose is different. The most special part about the scent is the salty part. To call it sweet-sour-salty sounds completely revolting, but it is not. The clear and straight rose, sweet in only the most conservative way, is set off wonderfully with that fresh salty sea accord. There are sometimes salt notes in perfumes with caramel as the focal scent, but in combination with roses it was new to me.
“Rose America” comes from the series “Une Nuit a Montauk” from the brand Une Nuit Nomade. Each of the series centres a few fragrances around the essence of a special place on earth. There are currently Montauk, Bali, Oman and Cap(etown). Montauk is a small city in the Hamptons on the east coast of the USA, famous for its beaches and the artists that passed through. The most famous group of all, the Rolling Stones, gave Montauk’s Memory Motel an own ballad song.
Une Nuit Nomade was founded in France in 2015 by Philippe Solas and Alexandra Cubizolles. The stories of how they met and what they did before differ and for us here it is not of great importance. What can be said for sure is that they established a brand that will stay for a long time. The scents from each series are clearly distinguishable and rotate around some central themes. In the Montauk series this is an understated luxury, closely attached to fresh air and the rough ocean. Straight, non-playful perfumes, very refined.
Philippe Solas and Alexandra Cubizolles work with different perfumers or “noses”. “Rose America” was created by Annick Menardo, who names quite a few famous scents her creation. She has made perfumes for Lancome, Dior, Yves St. Laurent, Lolita Lempicka, Armani Prive and others. Annick Menardo worked mainly for big companies that produce scents and scent ingredients like Firmenich and Symrise. It is quite fascinating to google these companies, as most people will not have heard of them, although they so shape the world of perfumes.
Une Nuit Nomade’s homepage states that the main scent notes of “Rose America” are raspberry, salt, rose absolute, carnation and ambrette.
To me the raspberries are overwhelmingly cherries. Clearly distinguishable not the sweet variety, but the sour cherries, often used in the kitchen for cooking and baking. The smell of cherries mingles deliciously with roses and salt.
“Rosa Rugosa” is the rose that gave the name to the perfume. She is also known as potato rose, apple rose, beach rose and even salt-spray rose. It is the only rose species that does tolerate salt-spray from the sea. Unsurprisingly, this rose is endemic to coastal areas, also well-known from islands. Originally it came from China, conquered Europe and then came to the USA. The rose hips that the rose bushes carry make a wonderful jam. It is not a rose as shown in the picture above, but a simpler variety. Rosa Rugosa has wonderfully bright flower petals.
The colours of the perfume are a cherry-red, white and black.
To give a face to the scent I think of the movie “Once upon a time in America”, featuring Robert de Niro and James Woods. The female lead character, played by Elizabeth McGovern, makes a few hard decisions to stay warm and comfortable. All very good to understand if one is no hypocrite, but also a bit cool and detached. “Rose America” is no heart-warming scent. It is a perfume for a strong lady who does things her own way. Feminine and beautiful, but not without fault, neither innocent nor terribly young, but crystal-clear.