CARNER
ROSE & DRAGON

2016

Wild Strawberry
Saffron
Cumin
Cinnamon

Bulgarian Rose
Turkish Rose
Incense
Honey

Leather
Castoreum
Labdanum

Sandor 70’s is the Carner that really blew me away, so I immediately ordered more samples of their Black collection. Next up was Rose & Dragon; unfortunately, this one didn’t live up to my expectations.

To be fair, looking at the note breakdown for Rose & Dragon, it does what is described and it’s not a bad scent at all. I just expected and hoped that it would be darker, more challenging or unique.

Maybe it’s because of the ‘black collection’ title and presentation or just because Sandor 70’s set the bar so high. Instead, Rose & Dragon is a slightly feminine, really jammy rose, with a clear strawberry note added. In the opening the fruitiness almost overtakes the floral aspect. The texture is really nice, it’s not too powdery or syrupy, but a good middle ground. After a while, the rose starts to overtake the strawberry and a soft leather or suede-like accord becomes quite prominent. Labdanum and castoreum are listed, but they don’t make this challenging at all; it remains very soft to me me.

I think after that initial blast of strawberry, I found it hard to fully appreciate this, but it really is a solid scent. It’s a good soft rose, with solid performance, but it’s not special enough for the price point in my opinion. Volcano shares a lot of similarities on paper with Rose & Dragon and I slightly prefer that one.