I vaguely recall buying Une Rose de Kandahar years ago. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time when I retrieved it from my shelf. I couldn’t really remember wearing this, or even the discussions we had had about it. I enjoy rose fragrances, so I hoped I would be reunited with something that I had once loved.

Back in 2019, I was briefly obsessed with the L’Air du Desert Marocain candles. I own the perfume, but I never really connected with it when worn on my body. I ended up buying several of the candles and enjoyed the scent much more that way. For a while it was my favored home scent, I had multiple LDDM candles scattered around the house. And then they burned down to the bottoms. Either the scent was more concentrated toward the bottom, or it accumulated as the candle burned down. Or, perhaps I just got sensitized to it. But whatever happened, the candle fragrance started to burn my throat and lungs every time I smelled it. Eventually, even the unlit candle smelled “hot” and irritating to me when I walked into the room. I ended up throwing them away.

Last week I got out PHI Une Rose de Kandahar and put it on twice. Each time I was just overwhelmed by the hot cinnamon and tonka. The perfume is prickly and dusty, quite harsh — it smells of alcohol and ambroxan and synthetic incense/spice melange. It makes my eyes water. The rose itself is timid, overshadowed by top notes of bitter almond and something apricot-adjacent. Later, when the vanilla comes, it’s just another complication in something that’s already pushed me to the very edge of my tolerance.

I don’t think that my candle experience entirely caused my dissatisfaction with the perfume, but it may well have exaggerated it. As soon as I smell Une Rose de Kandahar, my nose goes immediately to the parts of it that resonate as “Tauerade,” and I remember coughing because of the candle throw.

Today I wore it for a third time, and will scrub it. I find it discordant and unpleasant. It’s rough, and not in a way that I find interesting. I have friends who appreciate this perfume very much, but I think that you have to really love the signature Tauer accords to want to wear this.