MOTHER x LOVE

This fragrance has such an unusual profile (I’ve really not smelled anything like it before,) that I was chasing ideas in my mind about what I thought I was smelling. It has the olfactive quality of when we catch ourselves daydreaming and small flashes of memory momentarily take us away to sometime in our past, and we awaken again in the moment.

Through some very curious perfume trickery, the base notes of suede and musk come to the center rather quickly and form a kind of softly milky floral musk. This envelops you quickly, with very warm hands. I can understand that the narrative metaphor at play is the protective love of a mother, but the sensation really does occur within the perfume as well. Some perfumes make us bold, and others draw us in and rock us back and forth – clearly, we’ve succumbed to the second case and we’re almost ready to fall into a very peaceful slumber.

Mother x Love became my favorite of the three perfumes, and I may never know exactly why. Again, I blame the spirits that seem to swirl around these perfumes. The very moment it emerged from the blotter, a glorious note of litchi pealed forth and so much else opens along with it – a wet and tangy ginger, an ethereal vanilla (much more like the dry and airy Tahitian variety), and gentle, sweeter magnolia blossoms.undergoes fascinating changes on the skin as it’s worn – it evolves from something bright and citrus-filled to milky and heliotrope-powdery, and then finally to a soapy jasmine with sweet and gentle musk at the very end. Jasmine makes its presence known very late in the perfume, but its timing is perfect – it shows up just when it should, softly, persistently, with the faintest touch of suede. The closing of Mother x Love darkens just enough to become a bit more serious and thoughtful near the end, but it retains its fresh litchi-and-magnolia elements to the last moments.

— John Biebel
Editor at Fragrantica