First, this stuff is great. It may even be as good as one of my all time favorite roses Lyric Woman. It may even be better. Opus X is a rose turned inside out, with the soft skin touching you and the raw flesh exposed. It is brutal, lovely, and uncompromising.

Annick Menardo is listed as co-composer, along with Pierre Negrin. Negrin, incidentally, seems to be a favorite of Amouage’s Creative Director Christopher Chong. He has worked on a number of Amouage scents, and appears as co-composer on at least four in the Library Collection alone (of which Opus X is the tenth release). Perhaps his hand gives the extra experimental Library Collection its continuity, despite occasional unevenness. But while Opus X is undoubtedly an Amouage joint, the central rose accord has Menardo’s hands all over it.

Like Lyric Woman, Opus X harbors a nearly rotten fruit effect, which at first feels uncomfortable but then shines like the ray of light coming out of He-Man’s sword. So, while Lyric woman is intimate, Opus X is a war cry. Like so many of Menardo’s other great perfumes (including the freshly-reviewed Peau d’Ailleurs for Starck Parfums), Opus X is at once familiar and alien. It is deceptively familiar.

Most rose perfumes are soft and luxurious. Many are brazen. Some are wicked. Unlike any other rose I know, Opus X is at once searing and rich, sometimes disconcertingly so. The tension between the exceedingly complex rose core and the dense bed of–among other things–oud, never quite resolves itself. It certainly belongs among Christopher Chong’s “couture” Library Collection, but unlike most of those releases, it feels every inch the proper perfume. Hard to pull off, certainly, but egad, why wouldn’t you try?

With each passing year, Amouage seems more special and more unique. I may not like all their releases, but they are never a waste of time. If even the best of mass market perfumery is the fragrance equivalent of a Kristen Stewart performance, Amouage never fail to turn in a fully-fleshed Bette Davis. And at their best, an immortal Divine.

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