Scent descriptions · 07
Tale Parfums
00
Introduction
Tale is simple house. It takes a vision and achieves it with the minimum number of facets or elements (not really sure what the word is here) necessary, and without any excess. It gives all of their fragrances this impression of simplicity and almost efficiency at being great.
Given the prior description, I would be inclined to think of them as a relatively boring house; but honestly that is plainly wrong. Every creation they make is something that I would recommend anyone to smell. What they achieved is very impressive and their award record proves it.
I have also had the wonderful opportunity to meet with the owners, Chad and Diandra, the former of which is a screenwriter and perfumer and the latter of which is a creative director and perfumer. While talking to them, it became very obvious as to how Tale took its form in being what it is: they have the creative vision, and they are more than capable of relentlessly looking for the ideal means to execute it. Of course they did not tell me this exclusively, but I surmised from the interaction. I should ask them next time.
I can also point to the fact that for Bad Lily, they worked with perfumer Michael Nornstrand. An incredibly knowledgeable person who is the epitome of someone who has experienced so much within an art field that they can now take elements and work with them while maintaining a complete understanding of their workflow at all times. It is the way more advanced version of “fuck around and find out.” I have almost had the fortune of meeting him and he is a pretty cool person. He is also the perfumer who made Bad Lily, the Art and Olfaction 2025 winner. Well deserved, I cannot lie.
Overall, this house is one that is really impressive. I find that to make something amazing while keeping it as simple as possible is a feat that very few can achieve, and when it does happen I cannot help but emphasize it. To anyone who reads this – perfumer, enthusiast or a person who just likes smells – I suggest you smell their perfumes at least once.
01 Bad Lily
This perfume is the main attraction of this house. Michael Nornstrand explained it as being antagonistic to the most conventional idea of lily of the valley; Where the original is effeminate, gentle and subtle, Bad Lily is the night-time raw and crude equivalent – the one that grows among the weeds and surviving. I rarely agree with perfumers’ interpretations, but this is on the nose.
There is galbanum, which gives it that crass in your face greenness, and it feels like a really really really well done version of galbanum too (only comparable to something like Evergrow by Tombstone). This blends wonderfully with the actual lily of the valley, which exists as a white floral in the middle (comparable to orange blossom in its conventional usage). The lily itself is actually quite prominent, and my mind conjures up the image of it being lit up by the moonlight, with weeds and nettle and whatever else grows from this random patch in the ground.
Mid
As it develops, it does become less crass, and you feel the intensity of the galbanum die down; leaving you with an almost translucent water lily character; somehow achieving a lily of the valley that is gentle in contrast, and feels more gentle, brittle and lovely than any other.
The mid of this perfume feels like morning came and the lily of the valley got drenched in morning dew, the droplets of which now reflect the cool morning rays.
Dry Down
The dry down is the owner’s to write, and has not been written yet.
02 Fleurt
Top
Very sweet peach and strawberry. I can also get almond and creaminess (as an accord/note rather than a character or texture). Also it shares some cotton candy-ness that some of the Kayali Perfumes go for. It is somewhere between dense and airy. Too artificially sweet for my taste so far.
Mid to Dry Down
The sweetness definitely loses some of the artificial character the more this progresses. It also turns more and more peachy and almond-y which is a welcome change. I think there still is strawberry in there somewhere, but I feel that that and the cotton candy-ness may as well have blended into one. It also became more dense.
It manages to keep its character for quite long, and the only thing I can say is that the sweetness tends to converge a little, where it becomes more difficult to tell the notes apart, but asides from that, it remains consistent. One thing that does keep getting better though, is the synthetics become less and less prominent. It really does end up smelling like a fruity perfume with some creamy and sugary facets.
03 Rouse
Top
Oh I love this. It is such a sweet and gentle rose. When you spray this it feels the room with a genuinely BEAUTIFUL subtle sweetness. This is the smell I in my mind attribute to a romantic love. It has that character of someone who smells great despite there being no attempt of it.
It is a classic-rose oud in many senses, but it reduces that classic density or overwhelming sweetness you would get from the Turkish roses to a very pleasant minimum. There may also be honey or hay, which I think is a westernized take on this category; something that is quite refreshing. It makes me think that even in something done a million times, Tale managed to change it simply and well enough for it to be unique and better. May be the best rose-oud that I have smelled to date.
Mid-Dry Down
Remains pretty much the same, with a little less rose and a little more sweetness. It still projects really well and has that airy rose feeling the farther you are away from the actual strip/skin.
04 Water Me
Top
Water me starts off as one of those classic wet fragrances of moisture and ambrocinide. It is not too overwhelming, which is the biggest complement I can give when it comes to this category of fragrances. The characteristic that sets it apart from the others is the density I think, in that it is not dense. Other perfumes like Silent Rain by Almost Human, Nebbia Spessa by Filippo Sorcinelli or Deluge by NVRNAGN all have a characteristic density that overwhelms you. In some it isn’t bad, in most it is. With the top part of water me, it does not have that. Instead, it is more airy, like the garden equivalent of “after the rain,” rather than some forest road or concrete or what not.
Mid
Starts to resemble the aforementioned a bit more, as the density drops and the ambrocinide takes center stage (as well as all other parts of any stage; it is pretty loud). Still not as dense as those ones but dense.
Something to note is that despite it being likened to the other fragrances with Ambrocinide, something it does EXCEPTIONALLY WELL (even better than Silent Rain) is that it keeps the sour/rotten character away (the ambrocinide one).
Dry Down
As it settles it starts smelling a little like a drowned plant; a flower dying because it was watered too much. It still resembles the middle quite well though.
Or a chlorinated swimming pool.