Amouage Imitation Woman

 Amouage Imitation Woman is based on 1970s New York City, the city and time in which Christopher Chong grew up. Arriving in the Lower East Side in the mid 1970s, the sights, sounds and scents of New York have clearly had a formative impact on the Creative Director, who this year brings us Imitation, a new duo of fragrances that represent the “subcultures of an iconic era”. The name of the fragrance was inspired by Andy Warhol and his imitative art. Imitation Woman is a floral aldehyde eau de parfum, edp.

Amouage Imitation Woman Reviews

Fragrantica: "GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN?

Referencing an 80s pop song to describe a 70s-inspired perfume, but if you try it, I think you will see what I mean."

Fragrantica: "So juicy, so yummy, so different!!! "

An excerpt from a review by The Candy Perfume Boy 

Imitation Woman makes an impact, let’s get that straight right off the bat. The first spritz unveils a beautifully tart and neon blackcurrant note that evokes the hedonistic excess of fragrances such as Dior’s Poison. The blackcurrant is sharp and juicy, with animalic undertones (specifically that hissy, urinous facet often found in cassis), but also a lush verdancy that has a poisonous, bitter vibe. Accompanying the blackcurrant buds is a big cloud that rains with sharp drops of aldehydes. This adds a crispness, but also a silvery mist that evokes the excess of the 1970s and ’80s.  

Underneath the glittering lights of the opening is a strong floral section, packed with jasmine, rose, orange blossom and ylang ylang, all of which blend together to create a sensual warmth. Most of the flowers are imperceptible however, because they bloom behind a vast curtain of patchouli, a material that feels interwoven with the beads of aldehyde in the opening for extra sparkle. The patchouli here is sharp and cutting with a dryness that evokes the angular, standoffish nature of a supermodel. Incense provides a link of cold smoke that brings everything together, but for the most part Imitation Woman feels like an essay in the collision of three main chords – blackcurrant, aldehydes and patchouli. 

Imitation Woman is my kind of scent – it’s big and brassy with a luminous, showy sensibility. I love the retro glamour in this one – it really does transport one to Studio 54, where the air was filled with bombastic perfume, hairspray and lord knows what else. It presents beauty and eleganza, but it also has a harshness that suggests that the attractive veneer is not all that it may seem.  

An excerpt from a review by cafleurbon 

Studio 54, the inspiration behind Amouage Imitation Woman, was my weekend mecca: a glittery, decadent-innocent carnival with dark reaches where Andy Warhol kept court and questions shouldn’t be asked about what goes on upstairs. It mingled smells of cologne, Charlie, cigarette smoke, spilled booze, metal, sweat-infused polyester, lip gloss and that peculiar electric bulb smell with the old theatre remnants of velveteen, wood and dust that never quite left the balcony above the dance floor. Christopher Chong’s ode to my old haunt does it justice: rather than recreating smells, Imitation Woman embodies the club’s over-the top dazzle and contained dangerousness with big florals, a glitterball of aldehydes and a dose of outré. 

Imitation Woman opens the way Grace Jones grabbed a mic: an in-your-face, attention-getter with a blackcurrant and rose opening as big as all five boroughs. The fruit is saturated and phenolic, like concord grapes on acid. As you recover from that immediate burst of purple berries, a huge, lush lipstick pink rose elbows her way onto the dance floor where it’s sprayed by a geyser of aldehydes. The thick, honeyed creaminess of orange blossom moves in next. But before it can all get to be too much, some dry incense moves in, along with the calming touch of sandalwood, and Imitation Woman turns out to be a natural beauty under all that teased hair and mascara. 

With its saturated flowers and geyser of aldehydes, Imitation Woman gets Studio 54’s over-the-top, crazy glamour. But it isn’t afraid to embrace the club’s corners of seediness. Just as the flowers and blackcurrant reach fever pitch, a sinuous black licorice bitterness cuts right through all those partying florals. Taking its sweet time, the dry-down, when it finally comes, brings a green smoky incense with a reined-in woods accord that keeps everything in place. Imitation Woman is gorgeously, addictively perverse. 

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