Growing up in South Florida I knew our climate was different. I never really understood those who had need for more than the two seasons of spring and summer we had. We lived in the tropics where the sun shone all day and the flowers bloomed all around us. In our yard we had this beautiful bush which grew dark red flowers with a stiff yellow rod tipped with pollen sticking out from the middle. I spent a lot of days watching the pollinating insects dipping down inside to return with nectar. The flower has this lovely sweet scent. There have been a few perfumes which have tried to capture this; Nest Sunkissed Hibiscus does it well.
Laura Slatkin
Nest has been releasing well-done florals since their inception. Creative director-owner Laura Slatkin has had a clear vision right from the start with Amazon Lily. Another tropical inspired floral. Sunkissed Hibiscus hearkens back to those beginnings. The perfumer is not named for this perfume but there is a lushness to it which reminds me of a previous Nest release, Wisteria Blue. The perfumer for that one was Rodrigo Flores-Roux and I wouldn’t be surprised to know he was behind Sunkissed Hibiscus.
Whoever the perfumer is they can’t use hibiscus essential oil; they must construct an accord. In this case they rely upon four other tropical floral ingredients to create an abstraction of hibiscus. Those four pieces are frangipani, orange blossom, tuberose, and gardenia. It forms a vividly floral accord which carries the signature humidity of the tropics. The remaining ingredients are meant to reinforce that. First is coconut in its slightly musky off-kilter sweet way. Second is a warm amber to provide the sun kissed part of the name. The amber feels like the warmth of sunset cutting across the hibiscus as the bees make their last run of the day.
Sunkissed Hibiscus has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
I spent a lot of afternoons on the steps of my home watching the insects climbing in and out of the hibiscus. I would close my eyes and let the sun kiss my cheek in a South Florida reverie. Sunkissed Hibiscus does the same thing.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Sephora.
–Mark Behnke
