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Saturday Question: What Are Your Top 5 Amber Perfumes?

This is that time of the year again when the weather in the most places of the Northern Hemisphere unequivocally suggests wearing heavier and more opulent perfumes. Are you ready?

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

Saturday Question #89:

What Are Your Top 5 Amber Perfumes?

Not of all times, not the best creations ever, but just those that you think you will especially enjoy in the next couple of months?

For my readers on the opposite side of the World, do you have summer ambers?

My Answer

I love amber perfumes and have enough of those in my perfume wardrobe. But I often wait too long for the perfect weather – and then the season is gone before I could fully enjoy them. So, this year I decided to try and enjoy all of my favorite ambers. And I’m starting with these five:

  • By Kilian Amber Oud
  • Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan
  • Bvlgari Black
  • Ormonde Jayne Tolu
  • EnVoyage Perfumes Captured in Amber

Rusty and Captured in Amber

What Are Your Top 5 Amber Perfumes?

68 thoughts on “Saturday Question: What Are Your Top 5 Amber Perfumes?”

  3. I’ve just brought out my amber fragrances again and Am looking forward to wearing these: Ambra Aurea Profumum Roma, Ambre Fétiche Goutal, Mitzah Dior, Benjoin Bohème Diptyque, Absolue pour le Soir MFK. Also really love LADDM, but is feels more spicy than ambery to me.

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  4. I don’t have many amber fragrances, so I don’t know that I can truly list “top five”, but definitely Papillon’s Bengale Rouge! Others I own and enjoy a lot are: L’Ambre des Merveilles, Tudor Rose & Amber, Ambre Sultan, Champagne de Bois. I’ll have to think about this some more.

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  6. EL Amber Ylang Ylang d/ced why?
    SL Ambre Sultan
    Dana Tabu vintage for preference
    EL Youth Dew/Amber Nude
    Vintage Opium MUST be vintage & yes I know it would not have been amber in the past but hot damn it’s now a spiced amber so yah boo sucks
    I know, totally basic but sometimes the OGs cannot be beaten

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    • I’m not sure if I have ever tried any of your favorites but Ambre Sultan. I mean, I probably have smelled Opium (back when it wasn’t vintage yet :) ), but other than that – I don’t remember anything.

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      • EL Amber Ylang Ylang is a rich, decadent amber with a mixed bouquet of exotic florals. Turin & Sanchez called it Banana Fosters sounding it’s death knell. It now fetches huge prices in the preloved markets. Famed for macerating to a deep, dark witches brew that stains.

        Tabu is a mid 20th century gem where the brief was to make a fragrance for ladies of the night. It did! Even now it can be had for less than £10 for a gift set it’s still fab

        Youth Dew was Estee Lauders first fragrance, anything but youthful or dewy. Amber Nude was the Tom Ford directed reworking of Youth Dew. More Amber less raunch.

        All are worth a sniff.

        Amber is a note to me where budget doesn’t always improve it

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    • Love Alahine and decant-like 114. I think I liked Ambre Precieux, but when I had a sample of it, I couldn’t find a bottle, and now it has been too long to buy anything from the memory.

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    • How could I forget Alahine? Love it so much! Wearing it today, in fact. I also forgot to mention another favorite amber, Hermes’ Ambre Narguile. I know it’s too gourmand for some folks, but I really enjoy it. Here’s to a fabulous ambery November!

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  10. For yoga this morning I wore two squirts of Bohemian Soul which I have decided is an amber, and very nice it is too. As mentioned by others above, Champagne du Nois, Ambre Ylang Ylang, Amber Nude (have about 1 ml left). I’ll add DK Gold which to me is spicy amber and E Coudray Ambre Vanille. Is Adam Levine Woman allowed in this category? But of course. So many others that are but a memory now.

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  11. I don’t have many amber perfumes, and didn’t know Bvlgari Black was considered one, so there’s one! I also have Ambre à Lèvres from the Nez 1+1 series (though I would gladly trade it for Hongkong Oolong, which is not an amber…), Chanel Cuir de Russie, Mauboussin Histoire d’Eau (which smells much better on my other half than it does on me), and a sample of Jovoy Private Label that’s lasted me over 2 years. Phew! Didn’t think I could come up with 5. ;)

    Love the picture by the way! What’s in the glass? My first guess would be fig grappa…

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  12. PdE Ambre Russe, Tauer Au Coeur du Desert and L’Air du Desert Marocain, Masque Milano Tango, Profumum Ambra Aurea, Papillon Bengale Rouge, AG Ambre Fetiche, Teo Cabanel Barkhane and Alahine, Dior Mitzah and Ambre Nuit, MFK Absolue pour le Soir, Carner Barcelona Ambar del Sur – the list goes on and on!!

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  14. Dior Mitzah….an early love in my perfume journey
    Kerosene Copper Skies….iconic amber
    Tauer Desert Moraccain….spicy tent in the Sahara
    Hermes L’Ambre des Merveilles……special gift from my daughter with the Arabic calligraphy
    Lutens Chergui…..amber straw

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  15. Amber sometimes smells completely filthy on me, so here goes:

    Prada Cuir Ambre
    Prada Amber, which I love :)
    AG Amber Fetiche
    Dior Mitzah
    Le Lion-is that amber?

    Now here’s my Amber Fetich story:

    A few years ago I was having a problem with aggressive raccoons. So I set the humane trap. At the same time was working on enormous project for work. So up all night for weeks running trying to get things done. Come the morning of the work thing, I showered and dressed carefully. One spritz of AF and I was out the door. Checked the trap-something in it. Not a rac. A skunk!!!!! A small terrified skunk. I had no time-I told him not to spray. Had to undo the complicated latch and the creature went under the neighbours deck. He came over to give me hell cause his dog had been sprayed ( why was his dog at my place anyway?) and he stepped back in horror. He said I got sprayed. Christ. Back into the house to completely shower and change. Saw one the the drivers I work with on the way-stopped and asked him if I smelt of skunk. He’s such a nice person-he said no, and he sniffed me carefully.

    Made it to work and the project went well-but I was afraid all day of what I actually smelled of :)

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    • That’s a hilarious story! I can see how Amber Fetiche might be mistaken for a skunk incident :)

      I would have named Le Lion but it’s too new, so it felt like a betrayal to choose it over my long time favorites (not that I won’t wear it this season :) ).

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  16. I prefer sweet to “rough” ambers, it seems:

    Hermes L’Ambre des Merveilles
    Hermes Ambre Narguile
    Laboratorio Olfattivo Alambar
    Ormonde Jayne Tolu

    No fifth one so far. I like Ambre Sultan as well but would not wear it myself.

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  17. House of Cherry Bomb Immortal Beloved, EL Amber Ylang Ylang (had forgotten all about it till someone mentioned it above!), Dior Ambre Nuit, Hermes Ambre Narguile, and En Voyage Captured in Amber, like you. ;)
    I love Bengale Rouge, but that is more myrrh-y than amber to me, or I would have included it.

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  18. SL Ambre Sultan
    Tauers LDDM & ACDD
    and a new fave Masque Milano’s Tango.

    (I don’t think I have many ambers. And my choices – predictable me!)

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      • Hello! Lovely to see you too Brigitte!! I had forgotten that Undina hosted the Saturday Question so never visited. Also. haven’t bought anything these past two years.

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        • I think most of the current readers cut down on perfume purchases in the last couple of years. But as long as we keep wearing perfumes that we already have, we’ll find topics to discuss. So, please do not feel excluded!

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  21. I tried to get some inspiration before commenting, but it has just verified how I feel about amber perfumes.
    Initially, I thought that I loved amber. That was back at the very beginning of my perfume journey, but it was quite soon I worked out that all ambers feel very similar to me and I don’t really need a lot of them. Basically once I met Ambre Sultan, i didn’t truly need the rest. I do like Ambre Fetiche a lot too, and I would probably categorise Cuir beluga as an Amber too… possibly Cuir Noir ( Armani) which I really like, but again, I actually no longer feel that I need it.

    we haven’t had a very cold winter here in quite a while, so maybe if that changes I will get back into my amber groove.
    It was fun to read about all the ambers, and YD amber nude, which I used to have.

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    • I think Amber category is really vast (even before the word was used to re-identify one of the standard perfume families), so leaving aside straightforward chypres, citruses and hardcore florals, amber might be found in half of anybody’s collection :) But I know what you mean.

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      • Absolutely, I agree. In my head, though there’s still a difference between the re-identified category and ‘amber’. I love woody- ‘(new category)ambers’, or should I call them woody-spicy? I also have a couple of vanillas that we could call ambers as well, but an amber as a sweetish spicy perfume, not overwhelmed by a single other note, ie: vanilla, rose, carnation etc etc – I’m struggling to need more than one :-)

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