Memoir Woman Amouage for women

I don't have enough words to describe the beauty of this fragrance.It has managed to push aside my all time favorite, Shalimar (at least, for the time being!) as my number one. Memoir is a soft chypre, so smooth, refined and so delicious on the skin. It becomes a skinscent, with musky,smokey leather,and tuberose dominating the mix. It makes me feel comfortable,confident and sexy. To me it feels more oriental than chypre, for some reason it reminds me of Opium. Must be the way it combines with my own scent. Sillage and longevity: excellent. The best Amouage ever!(and believe me, I have sampled almost all of them!)I finally got my bottle yesterday, and I wore it today to the office. It is not loud, in your face, but it sure is present. I immediately got a compliment on it. I am in fragrance heaven!

I think the name is wrong. It's too airy, light and intellectual whereas this scent is dark, dangerous and intense. I would have said a name associated with the underworld or something like opium or poison might be more apt. I think it bears a resemblance to poison in that it's the only other fragrance I can think of with that kind of intensity and depth. It contains some notes that I love like a cat loves catnip- pink pepper and cardamom (I could sniff cardamom pods all day). The notes are all beautifully blended and the wormwood sits beautifully within the structure. This could be my signature scent but I'll bet a lot of people will think it's too heavy. What do they know.

My review won't be as sophisticated as most, but I will say that Memoir Woman is a lovely scent, though not unique.

To expand on that, it's lovely, because it's a very elegant blend of sweetness and muskiness right off the top without being heavy. Memoir is definitely not heavy. I accidentally applied too much, and it still seems just right (and I like scents with about a two feet radius from the wearer).

It's not unique, but its saving grace (for me) is the way it mingles delectably with my own natural scent. Memoir is a morpher and will most likely attempt to morph with your own body scent, rather than sit stagnately on your skin.

Memoir Woman is a moving target. It opens as an orange incense chypre, with spices and some huge white floral notes (jasmine, tuberose) holding an impatient sweetness at bay. Soon, though the flower and the spice hang in, a syrupy thickness takes the lead and Memoir comes to feel strikingly similar to Serge Lutens’s Cèdre and Arabie. By this time, you realize that Memoir won’t so much blur genre lines as jump over them. It’s moved from mixed-bag chypre to syrupy sweet and finally lands in the balsamic spicy oriental camp. If the basenotes are like an adult, you can still see the infant and the adolescent in her. The incense, florals, syrup et al are all still there.

All of the above. More is better. Bigger is better. You get the idea. Nothing either subtle or minimal happening here. Wearing it, I keep flashing to the image of an insect caught and preserved in amber.

I recently heard an interview with a Danish film director who noted the difficulty and ultimate payoff of delivering the unexpected while maintaining a believable narrative. She might as well have been talking about Memoir Woman.

Although I acknowledge this is a complex chypre, there is something about it which reminds me of half a dozen other perfumes and therefore not particularly distinctive. I prefer Lyric Woman & Jubilation from the Amouage range...but heck I will never be able to afford any of them! The wormwood and oakmoss add a rather soapy bitterness that I would not be able to tolerate wearing for very long. Thanks to my friend Yamba1 for the opportunity to try this!

Huge white florals and fruits (mainly orange) laying on a very complex, kinda animalic, resinous/incensey base. Smoky undertones and leather blends with the rest adding depth and a touch of darkness. A masterfully crafted cyphre that's satisfying and well refined yet not particularly distinctive.

Rating: 7/10

Memoir is a well-layered, complex smell. Peppered zesty opening with some incense note. Pleasant flowery aromas twisted with clove and musc.On me the cardamom is detectable in the drydown with leather, labdanum and musk and I feel some ginger note with some cinnamon in it...the end is lightly spiced,sweet, powdered, incenced leather touch on my skin.

Elegant, super-sexy, intoxicating, longlasting scent for real womens.



Update: Until I sniff my hand all the time, I just thinking about I know, this smell is very familiar for me....Avon Mesmerize!!!!It has more fruityness but the drydown is very similar on me.:)...and it's very similar Avon Far Away Paradise too..:)


The sillage is amazing, after 5 hours the application I still feel it so intensively!

I have barely words for Memoir except this one : masterpiece !
Stunning with incense, spices, liquorice, booze, herbs and flowers. A somewhat more dense version of Poison but heavenly and beyond imagination.
Smell it and you will know what I mean.
I must have this one even though the price is less enjoyable.

As I always state first; I'm not good at identifying individual notes. So, this is what I have to say after testing this perfume. I am in love with it! It has just the right amount of incence, rose, wood and cloves that smell feminine. It's a very "me" fragrance since I've been looking for a fragrance such as this without it being very masculine. I'm sure the mens version is delicious! If you like the smokey, incence slightly floral and leather, then look not further.

Amouage MEMOIR WOMAN is a thick and satisfying oriental chypre with a marked smoky leather note which darkens the composition overall while at the same time framing the lighter floral and fruity notes. I do not find the leather very animalic; it almost seems like dark-roasted tobacco, in fact.

As the composition develops, the smokiness fades to a light shadow of itself, while the labdanum becomes more prominent. The heavy hitters--including clove, absinthe, cardamom, pepper, styrax and incense--are judiciously measured in this composition so that none overwhelms the other notes.

MEMOIR is definitely a modern chypre, à la COCO MADEMOISELLE, BRYANT PARK, or LEXINGTON AVENUE, albeit not sweet, and nothing at all like the classic chypres, including MITSOUKO, FEMME ROCHAS, et al.

This creation strikes me as well-named. Multilayered and compelling, MEMOIR WOMAN has a significant and worthwhile development trajectory, which mimics the manner in which memories proliferate in consciousness as one reflects upon the past: one image leads to another until by the end one may even forget what started it all given where one lands… In this case, a scrumptious and complex perfume of the oriental-chypre kind… My favorite Amouage so far...

Two things that i cannot see in Amouage Memoir woman after wearing it on skin: a leather aroma; chypre accords. If this is Chypre, then I'm Brad Pitt (which i'm completely 100% sure I'm not). Amouage Memoir Woman acts like a spicy floral with the generous high quality incense that amouage likes to use. And Amouage Memoir Woman is quite like Epic Woman in terms of projection: they don't whisper, they shout in a elegant way.
The opening is like Poison has emerged from ashes, in it's glorious way. You have that dark-fruity aroma of Poison in Memoir Woman after the first moments, which is followed by incense and spicy touches. I can notice the bitter-cool aroma of wormood at first, and i think that the dark fruity aroma is partly due to the wormwood note. I already notice a tuberose note at this stage, which disappear for a moment and then show itself again later. The incense and the combination of sweet-spicy pink pepper, dry cardamom, pepper and clove may make it seem similar to Serge Noire in structure, but they differ in the point where Serge Noire has a intense oppening of saffron, which is lacking here. Also, the incense and cardamom are the notes that dominate the accord and are modelated by the other spices surrounding them. Then, the incense and spices go away and what comes to focus is a big floral accord. I don't think it's close to Cedre either, because Cedre doesn't have the generous jasmine and neroli combination that Memoir Woman has. At this point, Memoir Woman goes close to Serge Lutens Mandarine Mandarim and to a specific moment of Guerlain Boise Torride. The three fragrances has that citrus-sweaty flower accord that only appears on a fragranc when you have jasmine with orange flower or neroli. But Memoir Woman again relys on the spices to make the flower accord more spicy, salty, then the other two fragrances mentioned.
The base is more smoky, resinous, slightly musky, than mossy and leathery. I'm trying to see the leather and moss accord here, but they may be in a small dose in this case.
Memoir Woman seems like a fragrance to be wore when you want to be noticed. It's not a shy combination, not a simple one either. It doesn't seem to go entirely on a progressive top-drydown evolution, and seem to work more in matches of three-four ingredients that comes to focus and then gives space for other notes to take central part of the fragrance. At the drydown i can still smell the jasmine, the neroli, the spices, the tuberose, some of the wormwood, but what it's on focus it's the musk, styrax and labdanum. I'd say that it develops in some acts, the first being the wormwood-tuberose-cardamom, then cardamom-pepper-incense-clove, then jasmine and white flowers (which is neroli and orange flower to my nose), then musk, styrax and labdanum.

Memoir Woman opens with the mall effect: an opening blast that would surely catch your attention if you were zipping through the bottles on the counter. Love it!

Moving on... middle phase. This played like a visit to In and Out (this is a burger and fry franchise for all you non-Californians) When it was 'In', I got lovely incense and dry spices, which I give thumbs up to. When it was 'Out', I got...wet leather boots. Not so good.

Dry down- cheers for longevity, which I haven't had much luck with from this house. My closing comments are that this is a nice fragrance, just one that is missing something. A strong base. Compare this to vintage Cabochard, or any other leather heavy weight, and you'll see what I mean. There is something 'light' and 'watery' about this. Chypres are my genre, and I take them very seriously (as I tend to buy them). Here I want more- there just isn't enough contrast or anchor.

In all a good fragrance, I'm just not sure if it can woo over the intended fanbase.

Absolutely beautiful modern Chypre.

Something old, something new. Old is the construction. New is the mandarin orange touch instead of bergamot. Woody, warm with spices and incense. Few flowers and musk. Nothing sharp or aggressive. Sophisticated and elegant with a modern feeling.

The top notes reminded me of JPG classic with a chypre tone: absynth, cardamom, mandarin orange, pink pepper, wormwood, pepper, rose.
(Gaultier: in the top notes delicate rose scent is spiced by fresh anis. Middle notes combine sweetness of orange blossom and exciting ginger)

Also, it is unusual for a chypre but this fragrance is really sensuous, with a hint of smokiness. You might ask: sensuous without vanilla, tonka beans and patchouli? Yes. You should try it and mesmerize yourself.

Should I mention the leather and the musk?

Absolutely fantastic.

9.7/10

After 8 hours: incenses, styrax, labdanum with whispers of cloves on a bed of leather and wood notes. It couldn't have been better.

After trying a few days of Memoir Man I moved onto Memoir Woman.
Initial impression is wow, can I wear this instead. Starting out with a short lived orange settling to pink pepper and green wormwood with a floral contribution (from the white flowers?). After a few hours in the incense wafts around with rose and woods and jasmine and eventually a mossy musk. Sillage will have you walking around with nose pressed to wrist and over twelve hours useful life. Unisex and combines well with Memoir Man.