Many perfumistas associate color with the fragrances they encounter. I am usually not one of them. If I’m playing word association and you throw a color at me I am very unlikely to name a fragrance in response. For instance if you named my favorite color, purple; my response would be regal, Prince, or grape. Even now as I write this I can’t come up with a fragrant association and that’s trying way too hard. Purple is a rich deep color to my vision but unknown to my nose.

Pierre Montale has taken it upon himself to help me with my fragrant color blindness with his latest release Dark Purple. One thing I know about any fragrance from Montale is it will be rich, deep and powerful. Dark Purple is all three of those. M Montale chooses a dark purple fruit, plum, as the central note in Dark Purple. Just like almost any Montale fragrance I’ve tried it starts out strong and only intensifies throughout the development.

The plum note M Montale uses as the nucleus around which he wraps Dark Purple is lush and juicy. Early on he leavens it with a bright shiny orange note. That citrus quality has the effect of adding a bit of yin to the plum’s yang. The plum sticks around as the orange fades and it is joined by rose, and patchouli. Those two notes match the plum in intensity and depth and this is where Dark Purple really does live up to its name as there are depths to be “plummed” here and I spent hours over my time wearing this doing just that. The base is amber and ambrox and unfortunately for me the ambrox diminishes my personal enjoyment of Dark Purple to its fullest, as it is present here in all of its screechy quality I find irritating.

Dark Purple has overnight longevity and sillage to burn. People will know you’re wearing it all day and all night.

I really enjoyed the intense plumminess during most of the development of Dark Purple. It turned for me because of my ambivalence over ambrox and I know many of you don’t share that ambivalence. If you don’t, I think Dark Purple could be a really spectacular fragrance for you to try. For me the ambrox made this a little less interesting than it could have been based on the beginning. So instead of purple this left me a little blue over the opportunity lost.

Disclosure: This review was based on sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Managing Editor’s note: I have the name as Dark Purple but I have also seen this listed as Black Purple with the same note list so I believe they are the same fragrance.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor