MPG Secret Melange

Notes: cloves, lemon, Brazilian orange, lavender, spices, rose, jasmine, patchouli, sandalwood, musk

Secret Melange starts off as an old-fashioned kind of perfume-y scent for the first few seconds, then suddenly becomes a spiced Christmas ham, studded with cloves and glazed with orange juice.   The clove note is very pronounced and extremely realistic.  So much so that the other floral notes that start making their appearance a few minutes in seem out of place, until the rose really predominates.  It's a dry rose,  not quite dusty but barely alive.  Alongside the now-fading clove note, Secret Melange becomes a bowl of old potpourri badly in need of refreshing.  Or throwing away.  A little bit of musk and woody notes comes to the rescue, turning the scent into a more pleasant spicy rose fragrance.  

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I tried this; the citrus and clove notes seemed so enticing to me, and then weren't all that.  I really think I would enjoy this more without the rose.