not that kind of amber. The 'amber' here is an attempt to replicate the smell of "grey amber," ambergris, which is salty and animalic and excreted by sp*rm whales. It's a rather important distinction, so let my friend's error serve as a cautionary tale: if you're looking for a sweet vanillic 'amber,' this isn't what you want. There's nothing very sweet in here at all. Even the orange is bitter and pithy and dry, dry, dry. Bone dry. Dryness, in fact, is pretty much what this fragrance is all about. I've seen beach imagery used to describe this scent, and I find that apt enough so long as one understands that the aspects of "beach" being invoked here are mainly the salty, parched, and even somewhat uncomfortable aspects: the hot hot sand, the sharp-edged dune grasses, salt-encrusted skin feeling increasingly taut and stretched as it begins to sunburn. An orange peel left out in the merciless sun long enough for it to dry to the texture of a tough curl of pebble-grained leather. The bleached white, twisted forms that when seen from a distance could be either driftwood or bones. But there's life here, too, beside this strange sea. I've never smelled real ambergris, but many who have claim that the ambergris note in this fragrance is remarkably realistic. And I believe it, because there is a strange undercurrent here that feels positively primeval, just as one would expect of ancient, sea-aged whale excreta. It is a warm and animalic smell, one that is immensely welcoming, yet which also suggests saliva-licked skin, or the milky spit-up of a still-unweaned infant. It's a weirdly intimate smell, simultaneously oceanic and mammalian, and whether it registers as appealing or as disgusting to me seems to depend entirely on my mood. The overall effect, however, is to add the sea to this otherwise dry beach -- and yet also to suggest it as a somewhat strange and alien sea, perhaps an ancient one, perhaps even one of those shallow warm primeval seas that predate our existence as a species altogether. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this fragrance. While I find it both fascinating and immensely sophisticated, I also--as already mentioned--sometimes find its animalic ambergris note more icky than inviting. Then there are also some days when I find this stuff to be an instant migraine, and others when it clogs my sinuses. Don't wear this one around people with allergies or people who are in any way environmentally sensitive! There's something extremely allergenic about it -- it's not the oakmoss, I don't think, but one or more other things that combine with the throat-tickling oakmoss to form a kind of perfect storm of immune response triggering. Many people seem to like this as a summer fragrance, but for me, high heat and humidity make it far more likely that I'll find myself not enjoying its more animalic facets. I prefer this fragrance for the transitional periods bracketing high summer: late spring to early summer, and late summer to early fall.

2 months. Regret the decision, costly risk.