Amber & Roses (Mancera)

An absolute masterpiece.

This 2014 release is often described as a dark, vampiric, and overtly Goth take on roses. Given the name "Mancera," which sounds like it should be for a Scandinavian death-metal band in 1993, I was ready for something overwrought. Instead, I found myself wearing a beautifully made Damask rose fragrance not far from Creed’s Fleur de Thé Rose Bulgare (2000), and that surprised me more than anything else.

The surprise is partly about the brand. Mancera, Montale’s Western-facing sibling, wasn’t where I expected this level of refinement. Montale does plenty well, but often with obvious synthetics, designer-ish structures, and a taste for excess, so I assumed Amber & Roses would follow suit. It doesn’t—it's a few cuts above my two Montales.

When a perfume is this good, I prefer to keep the descriptions simple. Amber & Roses opens with a wan green geranium leaf accord, bitter, oddly isolated, and accompanied only by a faint suggestion of lemon. For the first ten minutes it feels almost like a misfire. The geranium smells natural enough, but its peppery bite has been sanded down to something muted and indistinct, as if it's being perceived from a great distance.

Then the veil lifts, and a remarkable rose blooms. It’s not a once-in-a-generation rose, but it smells like a master perfumer was given a generous budget and plenty of time: a clear, composed bouquet of Turkish roses. You can sense both naturals and high-quality synthetics at work, with rose absolute reinforced by a late 1980s headspace-style rose reconstruction, and it's lucid, naturally sweet, only bordering on jammy, without tipping too far over the edge. Nothing novel, but beautifully executed.

The tiny green sliver of geranium stays present amidst the bouquet, joined by cool dosings of Ambroxan and a silvery incense note, judiciously (read: slyly) used to bolster the rose, not steal its thunder. The Ambroxan is the same type used in Armaf’s Club de Nuit line—it’s not Cetalox or Ambrofix—but Mancera's choice feels right here. Basic Ambroxan’s twangy, faintly metallic edge works perfectly with the incense and with rose’s own bitter-metallic facet. Everything is balanced, cleanly dosed, and refreshingly simple.

It makes me think of Fleur de Thé Rose Bulgare because that was another Turkish Rose with a light sprig of green-woodiness that eventually (after around ten hours) dried down to a balls-to-the-wall ambergris base. Creed used at least 25% real ambergris tincture in the 2000s, with Ambroxan as a boosting agent, but even they're not using the real stuff anymore, so Mancera's all-synth "amber" is perfectly fine, even if they're not using the more expensive proprietary oil house materials. 

What matters is how it flows, and as with Fleur de Thé Rose Bulgare, Amber & Roses moves like a simple and direct rose/ambergris fragrance, with a touch of green-woodiness, a faint geranium instead of Creed's meek green tea note, and an extremely light incense adding just a touch of extra dimension that even the Creed lacked. Given a choice between the older fragrance's big-dick energy ambergris (the stuff was pretty raw and smelled like salty pennies submerged under wet seaweed that's been beached under the sun for seventeen hours) and Mancera's piously wispy incense with an even more subliminal microdrop of myrrh, I actually prefer Pierre Montale's take.

I’d like to note a YouTube review by Marc Robitaille, where he spent several minutes sniffing, grimacing, and downvoting this stuff. Yes, he looks sincere. But Marc is far too perceptive to genuinely think this smells bad. I suspect he's gatekeeping in an effort to prevent grey market supply from drying up, and honestly, I can respect that with this fragrance. It really is that good. If I were smarter, I’d do the same.

So no, don’t buy Amber & Roses. It’s disgusting. Easily the worst thing Mancera makes. Best to stay far away.