Rumba by Ted Lapidus Eau de Toilette Spray 100ml

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With all the complexity of the heart and base notes, it's a pity one can't smell any richness in the composition as a whole. Smooth peach lactone and bouquet of sweet white flowers, among which I detect ylang-ylang, jasmine, and a dab of tuberose, soon join the lingering citrus. In this case it was Ron Winnegrad who shares the credit, and together they created a strapping oriental. When viewed in historical perspective, Rumba's fruit, vanilla, and patchouli prefigure the gaudy berries and patchouli of Mugler's Angel, which would arrive just a few years later.

Rumba by Ted Lapidus– Basenotes - Perfume and fragrances Rumba by Ted Lapidus– Basenotes - Perfume and fragrances

Having served its purpose, the Loads-a-Money jibe - and the stonking fashion that went with it - was thought to be overstated and embarrassing.

While the two converge most obviously in their juxtaposition of fruit and powdery clean musk, a conspicuous patchouli base note leaves Rumba feeling darker, heavier, and somehow more conventional than the relatively buoyant Kenzo. But we all start somewhere, and in his early days he was - from time to time - paired with more established names. But there are some interesting grace notes: incense and moss, cool acid blackcurrant, a fruit syrup of runny boiled sweets, leather, tuberose, plum and peach, a green/citrus note with a fizz like sherbert. Rumba opens on a high-impact candied bergamot top note, which in fact persists well into the development.

Rumba By Ted Lapidus For Women, Eau De Toilette Spray, 3.33 Rumba By Ted Lapidus For Women, Eau De Toilette Spray, 3.33

A hint of coconut in the fruity floral accord lends the composition an understated tropical exoticism. A dark, woody incense-like fragrance with so much going on that my nose is getting numb from trying to decipher it all. Fortunately for him, because Rumba was a joint enterprise - and he was the junior partner - he can just shrug and say It wasn’t my fault guv, honest.

The plush drydown of sweet amber, vanilla, and musk is naggingly familiar, and it's only after much head-scratching that it comes to me: in both style and olfactory texture, Rumba resembles Kenzo's Ça Sent Beau, released in very same year.