hortus conclusus

  The countdown continues for my Tauer perfumes discovery set giveaway. If you are interested, I encourage you to enter the draw here . As its name suggests, Incense Extreme is a dry and pleasantly intense incense perfume, straightforward in its intentions, with a brace of bitter herbs at the opening. It then morphs into a very well-composed resinous frankincense and myrrh rounded out with what smell to me like cedar and roses—the immediately recognizable Tauer ones, which are distinct, as far as my nose can tell, from all other roses I have smelled. It takes on an almost tarry, leathery resonance in the drydown—at one point I was asking myself: is this more of  a leather fragrance than an incense one?  Like all of Tauer’s creation, this is well-crafted, interesting, and long-lasting, with a distinct roundedness I get from all Tauer’s scents—and I lo ve it very much. It is resinous and woody, but never loses a certain sweet floral note that keeps it approachable. I...