Review of Nectare Extradose by Yaroslavna Lasytsya

“You Are My Honey Bunny” is a song for nursery rooms and sugar-bright mornings, and I, foolish as a cub, thought that was the sort of honey I had bought. I expected a skipping, sing-song sweetness, all bows and bunny tails. But what the house of French Avenue has called forth in “Nectare Extradose” is honey of another jungle entirely—deep and grown and golden, where not even the shadow of a rabbit dares to wander for miles around. The scent steps out first with bitter orange, ginger and bergamot, iced and bright as a sherbet sun, cracking and fizzing with zest in the opening. Then the honey and walnut milk come padding in together, slow and sure, pouring like thick golden syrup, with a soft, powdered, spice-warmed milkiness underneath. The honey shines in full noon, building itself into a drifting cloud, enveloping yet airy in the most unexpected fashion. It is a clever stroke: for all its strong projection and easy sillage, the fragrance does not smother or choke, but settles around you like a well-worn pelt, comfortable and yet unmistakably present. Every gourmand note is rendered so true that it needs no introduction—each one knows its own name. Behind this, orange blossom and neroli weave a pale, tender curtain, keeping a thread of citrus light running through the heart, deft and quiet, never jarring the lead note from its throne. Vanilla then opens the shutters on a different scene: bright morning sunshine streaming into a patisserie, where fresh pastries, still warm, are laid upon the counter—golden, sugared, waiting. In among these delights there are woods and tobacco, stitched into the base; they deepen and widen the honey’s character, turning it so that it flashes with many shades: Songhean gold, orange sapphire, Baltic amber, Mali garnet. White musk moves like a light-footed keeper among them, trimming and balancing all that luscious sweetness so it never grows dull or heavy. This is the smell of summer honey thick with pollen, the kind made by humble bumblebees. I remember it from my own cubhood—rarer than any treasure, tasted only twice, for my grandfather said that since bumblebees do not gather in great nations like the honey bees, their honey may be taken only when he decrees. “Nectare Extradose” carries that memory: warm, comforting, a sun-warmed comb in the hand. And honey, being honey, lends itself to friendship—it layers wonderfully with cool, white musks (I have tried it and lost my heart to the result), and with woods and tobacco scents that walk beside it as equals. It is a versatile creature, not merely a seasonal indulgence; only, I would be wary of wearing it alone for an open-air lunch in the blazing heart of July, if one is shy of the company of wasps and bees. If I were to show you its picture, I would choose Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” the Lady in Gold. All the colours and glints and flowing shapes of this perfume—its honeyed planes, its jewelled depths, its molten movement—are already painted there.