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| Photo by Don Graham |
Having taken up the pursuit of fragrance writing in the early twenty-tens, I was privy to veritable oceans of shit-talk about the house of Creed. The brand was lambasted for its purportedly false historical references and claims of clientele pedigree, and for generating legions of "swivel-eyed" chads who swore by their "panty-droppers."
Yet, to me, Parfums de Marly is a far more chad-centric niche brand than Creed ever was. I can't even get to my subscriptions page on YouTube without encountering a half-dozen videos of men touting the latest PdM scent. It even generates quite a bit of female-driven content, to the point where if another woman tells me how sexy Layton is, I'm buying a one-way ticket to Međugorje and taking a vow of chastity.
Nevertheless, Valaya is a beautiful name on a beautiful bottle for a perfume crafted by a handsome and accomplished perfumer named Quentin Bisch, and with ample evidence that PdM isn't going anywhere anytime soon, it's time for a review. The PdM site gushes, "Fresh top notes as bergamot, mandarin, and sweet white peach, lead to a blend of white flowers, settling on musk and ambrofix sensual base notes." Reading that, I'm lead to believe that Valaya is a standard woody-floral musk. Priced at $177 per ounce, I want the floral elements to really shine. And they do, kind of.
The copy is fairly accurate in regards to the top: noticeable for several minutes are juicy essences of warm citrus, followed by a lick of peach, and they're soft, transparent, and well done. In our post-Covid world, in which every other nose is virus-compromised, perfumers have resorted to diabolically powerful ambers and musks, things that even the most war-torn snout can detect. I've never had Covid, so mine is still keen. It embraces the top notes of Valaya, only to sense their swift transition to a massively radiant and intensely powdery white musk, which emanates facets of the fruity opening fusillade, while also enveloping them in a gauzy haze of arid, nondescript freshness. Must be the Ambrofix, which Givaudan cites as "the most suitable material to deliver an authentic Ambergris note."
This cacophonous muskiness also possesses ambery, vanillic, and white-floral dimensions, including a truly diaphanous accord of a dry orange blossom melody uplifted by a silvery, muguet-like harmony. There is subtle beauty to be found in Valaya, but I feel that it "flattens" around ninety minutes after application, and becomes a nebulous and linear dryer-sheet amber for the remainder of wear time, which stretches on for no less than ten hours. In the end it reminds me, stylistically at least, of CK One, that landmark abstract citrus-floral, which can still be had for around eight bucks an ounce.