Bitten by the perfume bug, scent now an obsession, I ‘ve experienced odd things in the past year.   Here’s the latest.  In 1982 the Sultan of Oman set out to restore the Arabian art of perfumery.  He hired the great French perfumer, Guy Robert, who did a fabulous job, as have the other perfumers who since collaborated with Amouage (I think it means wave or ground swell).  I happened to obtain a decant (sample) of one of their attars, called Tribute. It’s a smoky, woody, spicy, rose and jasmine dream. Unfortunately, it’s no longer produced, but luckily there’s a huge market in vintage and discontinued perfumes.  I searched and found an extremely rare bottle of the original formulation on sale in Dubai for $815.

However, my obsession is not that serious.

Still, I mourned the loss, now and then opening and sniffing my meager 1 ml decant.  Then I had an inspiration.  I went to the perfume site parfumo.net, looked up Tribute’s notes and typed them into the search engine.  Perhaps  an affordable smell-alike existed!  Sure enough, Mary Greenwell, a London perfumer, had a perfume called Fire, just out this year.  It contained all but one of Tribute’s notes (ingredients)!

I searched for a decant.  None available.  I searched for an FB (full bottle).  Turns out Harrod’s (London department store) sells Fire for a price I might pay for a blind buy.  Then tragedy.  As I tried to add Fire to my basket, I saw the dread sign:  “UK delivery only.”  Frantic, I searched Amazon, searched ebay, searched every outlet I could think of.  No Fire anywhere.

I imagine I’ll survive.  After all, this is better than my hypersensitive nose’s previous occupation: human canary for all things toxic in the air.  I do own other perfumes.  My nose can smell them at will.  There’s no reason for it to upset the rest of me like this.

I’m sure Mary Greenwell’s Fire will eventually show up somewhere.  Searching . . . searching.