Ambre Samar was released in spring 2025 in the Absolus Allegoria collection. Its perfumer, Delphine Jelk, who heads fragrance creation at Guerlain, depicts a lunar eclipse: frankincense and an ambergris tincture darken an amber accord with vanilla and honey, with almond and cardamom in the top, davana in the heart, and benzoin, patchouli and tonka bean in the base.
Sophie Normand describes a chiaroscuro amber, almondy and cardamom-laced at the start, quickly liqueur-like and honeyed, which she finds warm and bewitching.
Olfastory’s review
Sophie Normand, Fragrantica (2025)
In a May 2025 column, the writer first perceives an almond lifted by cardamom, crunchy, almost pistachio-like, which reminds her of an Oriental pastry. On the blotter, the cardamom stays fresh; when worn, the composition quickly turns liqueur-like and tinged with davana.
She smells a honeyed weave with tobacco accents, which she links to Tobacco Honey, from the L’Art et la Matière range. An animalic, woody facet emerges at this stage, which she attributes to the ambergris tincture, along with a smoky, mineral frankincense.
She describes a shimmering amber accord, in which she picks out labdanum, benzoin and vanilla, that bathes the whole in a golden halo, and a patchouli that extends the woody weave. She concludes that it is a warm fragrance, Oriental in inspiration, whose charm bewitches her.