ASHORE (2020) • AMOUAGE🔺 • ScentAdvice

With this collection Amouage dropped the gender pronouns for the first time (which I’m all for), but kept the different bottle styles. Ashore definitely leans heavy on the traditional feminine side as its bottle suggests.

A fair warning that I might not fully do this one justice. It’s essentially a bright, transparent jasmine fragrance. To my nose it comes across very minimalistic. I don’t get deeper or indolic touches and it doesn’t get very sweet, at least at first. It seems to be a linear, bright floral, quite soft, though it lasted well on my skin. I can’t detect many of the listed notes, although in the later drydown some of the ambergris seems to rear it’s head, giving a bit of sweetness and a distinguishing tinge to an otherwise pretty straightforward wear.

I knew straight away that this wasn’t for me. These really bright white floral styles tend to be pleasant smelling, but I relate them to air fresheners that I use around the house, more than perfumery. That’s strictly a personal taste however. If you like the style, I don’t think this one does anything particularly special, but it is pleasant and it performs well, which is rare with the scent profile. Unfortunately for me, it’s my least favorite of the Renaissance four.

Sidenote: This review is from 2020; in 2022 jasmine is one of my favorite notes, so it would be interesting to see if I still agree with the thoughts above when I smell Ashore again.