Gifts of the Three Magi: A Myrrh-athon

What is myrrh? Myrrh is a gum produced by the Commiphorah myrrha species of tree native to the Arabian Peninsula and North-East Africa. Deriving from the Arabic word مر (mur), meaning ‘bitter’, myrrh oil is used all over Arabia, China, and India as a traditional medicine.

Oil versus resin: Myrrh oil is quite different from myrrh resin. Myrrh oil can be bitter, rubbery-smelling, and often quite saline (mushroomy). The resin smells earthier, slightly sweet, with musty undertones – when lit, it smells quite smoky (well, duh).  

What does myrrh smell like? While frankincense is a soaring series of sunny, high-pitched notes like lime peel or crushed pine needles, myrrh is dark, fungal, and gloomy, reminding one of the dark shadows behind massive stone pillars in a cathedral, signed pine, tar, anise, licorice, and the scent of freshly-sliced ceps. It can be soapy, fatty, or rooty. In perfumery, myrrh lends a subtle, earthy tone pitched halfway between soil and stone. It has a sepulchral quality, leading some to categorize it as Gothic or moldy.

Some facets of myrrh are intensely bitter, while some smell like sweet licorice, anise, or rubber. Often the resin smells latex-y and saline (in cookery terms, if frankincense is a citrus fruit, myrrh is volcanic salt).

Personally, I often perceive myrrh as smelling ‘hollow’, as if there were a tear in the fabric of the fragrance where the aroma is supposed to be (a sort of negative space). Myrrh has a deeply atmospheric smell, redolent of the air inside centuries-old European cathedrals.

Below are some examples of myrrh-based fragrances, or fragrances where myrrh plays an unexpected or pivotal role, even if unlisted.

Oriental Velours (Les Indémodables) – Fog Machine Myrrh

This is a magisterial – and wholly original – take on myrrh. I find something new to marvel at every time I wear it. Fresh spearmint, spruce, rosemary, and fennel pollen crushed hard between my fingers, releasing a bitter, foresty odor into the chill night air, where it meets the equally bitter, foresty myrrh in its natural habitat, oozing from a hundred different cracks in a tree stem. But not the twisted, sun-battered husks of Commiphorah myrrha tree native to the Arabian Peninsula and North-Eastern Africa – imagine instead a Northern pine or spruce standing tall in a Scandinavian forest, weeping big fat sticky tears of myrrh, which magically disintegrate into a million powdery spores once they leave the tree.

The texture of the scent is important to note. Though both fir balsam and myrrh are sticky, dense, resinous materials that are about as easy to manipulate as a tin of molasses, here they seem to cancel each other out and disperse through the air in a sheen of glittering, super-fine mica. The effect is of myrrh and mint plunged into a dust cloud of ‘matte’ peppery notes that smell half like the business end of a just-lit firework and half like the sharp, grey chemical fog emitted by an over-enthusiastic fog machine (think Baptême du Feu by Serge Lutens, the recent Crimson Rocks by Amouage, or Fleurs et Flammes by Antonio Alessandria for similar ‘fog machine’ or gunpowder effect).

The more I wear this, the more I think that the damp, mealy bog land vetiver used here plays the largest role in achieving this textural effect. Gunpowder, fireworks, sulfur – whatever it is, it makes the scent feel exciting and taut. The vetiver acts as a gray-green, washed out, faded piece of velvet tamping everything down, giving the scent a mellow, low-key grassiness that is nonetheless devoid of sunniness or light.

There is something so simultaneously cleansing and plush about this scent that it feels like being wrapped in ermine while breathing in the air of a snowy forest. I’d like to say that the experience feels wholly natural, but of course, it does not. Aside from the ‘fog machine’ or gunpowder effect, there is a tiny hint of that metallic aftershave undertone that anything pine or spruce-like brings to the party.

Happily, though I first perceived this first as a spoiling dose of Iso E Super, I have found that if I re-frame this note for myself as more of a hangover of pine than a deliberate application of some burnt-smelling wood aromachemical, then I can live with it. (I am good at talking myself through the rough spots in a scent that I really love).

Interestingly, the clash of vanilla against this aromatic set of notes, plus that gray-green nutmeal vetiver, creates a brief whoosh of something that feels as powdered and plush as a tin of cocoa powder blown out into hot glass. The ‘velour’ part of Oriental Velours is accurate even if the ‘oriental’ is not – this is old velvet and ancient wooden furniture collapsing with time into dust spores that carry the breath of the forest with them. Licorice, mint, grass, and root buried under acres of quiet, black dust.    

Myrrhiad (Huitième Art) – Myrrh for Myrrh Pussies 

A single nugget of myrrh mercy-drowned in a pudding bowl of waxen vanilla, with a sweet amber accord thickening it up like arrowroot. Myrrh will out, of course, and in Myrrhiad, it comes through as the soft, sappy licorice accent running along the back of the scent like rubber tracking.  Think the chewy licorice vines you get in the pick n’ mix at the cinema that are more texture than flavor, rather than the oily, resinous, or mushroomy twang you have in real myrrh. This is essentially myrrh for myrrh pussies, which might be an accurate way of describing me. Balmy, vanillic – Bvlgari Black-lite. Love it.

Baume du Doge (Eau d’Italie)– Myrrh Agrodolce  

Like its brothers, Bois d’Ombre for the same brand, and Dzongkha for L’Artisan Parfumeur, Baume du Doges (Eau d’Italie) is emblematic of a period in Bertrand Duchaufour’s career when he seemed deeply interested in excavating the vegetal, vinegary side of resins for brilliant effect in incense compositions stuffed with dried fruit, smoky grasses and roots, and odd accents like whiskey or wet newspapers. The effect is that of sourness balanced by sugar and a hit of smoke – a sort of myrrh agrodolce.

True to form, the opening of Baume du Doge emits a sharp vetiver and cedarwood frequency that smells like the burn in your throat of a particularly smoky Laphroaig. This spicy burn is simultaneously calmed by a balmy orange milk accord and revived with a clove note that splits the difference between a licked spoon and a virulently camphoraceous mint. This creates a wonderful vanilla-orange-peel-incense accord that smells like Christmas morning. The vanilla is restrained; just a smear of something friendly to take the sting out of the astringent myrrh.

Because this is essentially a myrrh perfume. With its gloomy demeanor, myrrh is the sulky emo teen of the resin family, but here, a smile has been pasted on its face by way of a bright, boozy sparkle that feels like the crunch of cassonade on a crème brulée. The brown-gold depth this creates is not a million miles away from the deep dried fruit, vodka and whiskey notes in Ambre Russe (Parfums d’Empire), minus the black tea and leather notes that take that great perfume in another direction entirely. Still, I think it’s remarkable that both Baume du Doge and Ambre Russe manage to smell quietly but resolutely masculine, despite the presence of sugary, ‘edible’ notes.

The richness of the resin against the vegetal tartness of the vetiver and cedarwood smells absolutely right, as if the basic bones of this successful marriage already existed in the air, waiting for a perfumer with vision to come along and bring it all together. Unfortunately, Baume du Doge runs out of steam quickly, getting quite threadbare in the drydown, so those looking for that brilliant, rich orange peel incense and milk accord to be sustained throughout may be disappointed.

Myrrh Casati (Mona di Orio)  – Flat-Coke Myrrh

Myrrh Casati is something of a head-scratcher. The first Mona di Orio fragrance to be composed by someone other than Mona herself, following her tragic death in 2011, it is rendered in a style that seems to deliberately side-step any of Mona di Orio hallmarks. It lacks the almost overbearingly rich, dirty woodiness of Vanille and Oud, the dry-ice almond musks from Ambre and Musc, and the harsh animalism of Nuit Noire and Cuir. Without these little olfactory clues that tucked so deftly into the sleeves of her work, I am lost. Myrrh Casati could be the work of anyone.

If her other perfumes are rich tapestries, then Myrrh Casati is a silk gauze. It is beautiful but simple to the point of being spare. The opening is particularly striking. A dark, dry spice note fuses with a warm, cinnamon-tinted Siam benzoin and sharp black pepper to form the exciting specter of tarry Coca-Cola. There is also an arresting black rubber tint to proceedings, prompted by saffron or the myrrh itself (which can sometimes smell like rubber or latex). But this opening salvo of richness or darkness quickly attenuates. Within minutes, all that remains on the skin is a vague glaze of something spicy and something minty-licoricey, loosely held together by the benzoin.

Eau d’Iparie (L’Occitane) – Mossy Myrrh   

Apart from a honeyed, fruity (almost berried) topnote not present in the original, the reissue of Eau d’Iparie remains mostly the same as before – a very natural-smelling, balsamic myrrh fragrance that sets the myrrh in an outdoors context rather than in the typically dark, Gothic-churchy one.

The honeyed radiance of myrrh resin predominates at first, but soon, the scent shakes off this cozy mantle in favor of a flinty minerality, which smells to me very much like water running over moss-covered stones in a stream. With its unpretentious, earthy demeanor, Eau d’Iparie is the type of non-perfumey perfume that smells good to people for whom fragrance is a secondary ‘grooming’ thing rather than a full-on obsession.

Avicenna Myrrha Mystica (Annette Neuffer) – Sunlit Myrrh  

America has Mandy Aftel,  Australia has Teone Reinthal, and Europe has Annette Neuffer. I’m not sure why Annette doesn’t get the kind of attention that the other natural or indie perfumers do, but I suspect it has less to do with her natural talent than with her reluctance (as with many indie perfumers) to engage with the quid pro quo sleaze involved in the social media marketing and self-promotion that these days goes hand in hand with making and selling perfume.

If you want to see what Annette Neuffer can do, though, I beg you to try something like Avicenna Myrrha Mystica. She has a way of turning this rubbery, dense, semi-bitter resin into pure ether. Applying a balmy orange peel note to make the dusty myrrh bright and juicy, and surrounding the resin with a puffer jacket of velvety cocoa powder for comfort and depth, Neuffer feeds us a myrrh that’s been massaged into its most agreeable shape yet.

Mid-section, it develops a wonderfully damp (almost soggy) cardboard sweetness that reminds me a lot of Cocoa Tuberose by Providence Perfumery, and in fact, both scents share a soft, smudgy feel that is as sexy and endearing (to me) as the idea of Jeff Goldblum breathing on his spectacles to fog up the glass and clean them with the corner of his wooly sweater. Part cocoa powder, part flat Coca Cola, backlit with a dry hyraceum note that adds a faintly musky, funky quality to the myrrh.

But that orange peel persists, and that is what wins out in the end – a fresh, resinous orange (or perhaps a fresh, orange-tinted resin?). Either way, I find Avicenna Myrrha Mystica both utterly engrossing and a breeze to wear, and it is not often that you can say both things about myrrh, especially in an indie or all-natural take.       

Alien Essence Absolue (Thierry Mugler) – Hubba Hubba Myrrh

Alien Essence Absolue is primarily a thick, rich floral vanilla but one in which a dollop of bitter myrrh has been placed to keep things in balance. It smells like bitter almonds, marzipan, and papery tobacco, all folded into a thick vanilla and jasmine custard. When applied lightly or dabbed on, the cool, minty anise of the myrrh emerges, backlighting the warm ambery vanilla. The jasmine is so creamy and rich it almost takes on a coconut edge, briefly summoning up the feel of a tropical gardenia. As an aside, the bottle is shaped like a butt. And who doesn’t have shelf space for something shaped like a butt, I ask you sincerely?

Messe de Minuit (Etro) – Sepulchral Myrrh 

I’d always been puzzled when people would describe Messe de Minuit as a gloomy fragrance, because until about a year ago, the only version with which I was familiar was the modern one, which has been cleaned (and brightened) up so much that none of the original descriptions of the scent made any sense. The latest version of Messe de Minuit smells like a gloomy Italian cathedral with the flood lights suddenly turned on and the doors thrown open to let the fresh air in. It is an incredibly cheerful smell – bitter orange peel and mixed with the lime-peel and pine brightness of unlit frankincense.

The older version, of which I now own a bottle, is a different story. Though still not quite as nihilistic as the very first version, the reaction to which saw Etro scuttling back to the drawing board to ‘fix’ it, the dour, fungal dampness of myrrh mixed with a powdery, spicy benzoin produces an aroma that recalls with a startling degree of accuracy the scent of cold stone floors, mildewy papers, and  the slightly metallic, inert air of a closed-up sacristy. The chill of the myrrh is eventually warmed a little by the golden labdanum lolling around in the basenotes, but the scent never truly shakes off its central character of cold, dusty, ancient stone.

Though I understand why not everyone wants to wear the smell of rising damp on a sacristy wall (carrying with it the unsettling suggestion of neglect), you have to give Messe de Minuit credit for making its wearer feel like they’ve been plunged into a particularly dark Goya painting, and I am thinking here of the one where Saturn is devouring his own son.   

Myrrhe et Délires (Guerlain) – Macaron Myrrh

As I inch closer to collection completion (or the end of my ‘scent journey’), I have had to get very tough with my Guerlains. L’Heure Bleue, for example, doesn’t make it into my final edit (I’ll finish the small vintage parfum I have, as it is delightfully trashy and rich compared to the candied floral that is the current EdP), and, much as I enjoy wearing them from time to time, neither does Chamade, Tonka Impérial, Cuir Beluga, or the much vaunted Après L’Ondée. These are not the essential Guerlains for me.

Testing Myrrhe et Délires under such conditions reveals my lines in the sand. A few years ago, I would have forgiven this scent its flaccid body for its charming violety-irisy topnotes, which smell like those lilac-colored macarons in the window of Ladurée, or what I imagine the pastry scenes in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette must have smelled like – all spun sugar, candied violets, and sugar paste roses. If I had tested this during my violet phase, fuhgeddaboudit. Would have sold my soul, probably.

But honestly, from where I’m sitting now, Myrrhe et Délires just doesn’t make the cut. Full marks, though, for rendering the bullish myrrh – a material whose darkish, mushroom-water tonalities usually drown delicate floral notes like candied violet – into a lace doiley’s worth of frothy anise and soft bready notes. Taken together, Myrrhe et Délires smells like Chowder’s violets and those soft black licorice rolls so mild that you could thumb them into the mouths of babies. But with great age comes wisdom; I can tell you that Guerlain’s own Black Perfecto is a much punchier, more emphatic spin on the same idea.

fallintostars (Strangelove NYC) – Oudy Myrrh

Review here. What I smell in fallintostars is really an act in three parts: Hindi oud, followed by champagne-and-vodka amber, and finally a huge honking myrrh not listed anywhere. Of course, it is entirely possible that Christophe has managed to work the inky, astringent tones of saffron and hina attar (henna) with his feverish fingers into the shape of a rubbery, mushroomy myrrh. It is also possible that it is just myrrh.

Bois d’Argent (Dior Privée) – Woody Myrrh

Aptly named, Bois d’Argent is a creamy, smoky woods scent with a streak of silvery iris running through it. The iris is here only to cut through the heaviness of the other notes – a lump of levain mixed into a heavy bread dough – so most of its lovely grey rootiness or butter tones are lost in the fray. However, without the soulful lift of the iris note, I think this composition would be a heavy, sodden mess – a dense genoise rather than angel food.

Bois d’Argent is primarily a sticky myrrh scent to my nose. Myrrh is a tricky material to work with in a perfume. Myrrh oil can be very bitter, mushroomy, and ‘black’ in its favor profile, although I suspect that the perfumers went more for the myrrh resin smell here, which is earthier, woodier, and sweeter than the oil itself, which can smell very rubbery.

As in similar fragrances such as Bois d’Iris (The Different Company) and Myrrhe Ardente (Annick Goutal), the myrrh in Bois d’Argent is paired with a sweet honey and vanilla pairing designed to tone down the bitterness of the oil, and a polished woods basenote to play up the smokier notes of the resin. There is also a faintly licorice-like note here, a note frequently matched to the anisic qualities of myrrh oil.

There is a crystalline texture to Bois d’Argent that I also note in Myrrhe Ardente, like crunching on honey candies, the small ones you sometimes get with coffee in Italian bars – they look and taste sweetly creamy, but quickly explode into shards when you crunch down on them. And, as with the candies in question, myrrh, when this sweetened, has the tendency to cloy.

For this reason, I find Bois d’Argent striking but ultimately exhausting to wear. The silvery iris and woods opening is beautiful, but the sweet vanilla in the base is far too syrupy, and the myrrh just continues droning on in its monogrammed monologue for hours on end, like the dinner guest who has zero self-awareness and thinks that we will all be as fascinated by his role in corporate finance as he is. The same complaint applies to Bois d’Iris and Myrrhe Ardente. There are times when these fragrances work on me, but inevitably, something in them eventually clogs up my airways and wears on my spirit.

Ilang Ilan (Mellifluence) – Tropical Myrrh

Ilang Ilan bursts open with a pungent ylang note, vibrating at an especially evil level of banana-and-petroleum fruitiness inherent to the material. But almost immediately, this is counterparted by the chewy licorice snap of myrrh, whose dark, anisic saltiness stuffs a cloth in the shouty mouth of that exuberant ylang, telling it to calm the f&*k down. For a while, this is so good that you wonder why ylang is ever paired with anything else other than an equally pugnacious myrrh.

Alas, it is an all too brief display of force. In the drydown, the ylang departs, leaving only the mineralic, mushroomy facets of the myrrh to dominate. It smells like water you’ve soaked ceps in. For myrrh fanatics, this might be a boon. For the ylang enthusiasts, this will feel like bait-and-switch of the worst kind.

However, Ilang Ilan is worth at least a sample, especially if you’re into the excitement of an action-packed opening. The leather, the rubber, the fuel, the licorice…whoever said that tropical florals are not for men just haven’t tried the right ones. There is no creamy, trembling banana custard here, and certainly no tropical leis draped on Gaugin-esque island beauties. Instead, this is ylang with the sinister shadow of myrrh standing over it, dagger in hand.

1000 Kisses (Lush) – Marmalade Myrrh

For once, Lush’s strategy of unceremoniously dumping a vat load of bolshy, untrimmed raw materials into a scent and letting them all duke it out actually works. The osmanthus takes the form of a cooked apricot jam spiced heavily with almond essence and cinnamon, making me think of boozy Christmas fruitcakes slathered in apricot jam and carefully wrapped in a layer of rolled-out marzipan. But if there is cooked citrus jam, then there is also something nicely fresh here, in the form of that metallic, juicy brightness that stains your fingers for hours after you’ve peeled a mandarin.

These layers of both juicy and jammy citrus interact with the dusty but headily spiced myrrh to accentuate the Coca Cola-ish aspects of the resin, complete with its dark ‘crunchy’ sweetness and joyful, nose-tickling fizz. If I could spread 1000 Kisses on a slice of toasted panettone, I totally would. A uniquely cheerful take on myrrh.

Myrrh & Tonka (Jo Malone) – Mass Market Myrrh

A stodgy almond Battenberg of a tonka bean cups a chewy licorice lace myrrh in its sweaty clasp, and they both drown in the disappointing chemical buzz that is the standard Jo Malone base. Pro: it is stronger than most Jo Malone scents and will last all day. Con: it is stronger than most Jo Malone scents and will last all day.

Thichila (Parfums Prissana) – Plastic Balloon Myrrh

Sorry to be bossy, but I’m really going to have to insist you disregard any reviews you see for Thichila that make it out to be tremendously complex, floral, incensey, old school, or even chypre-ish – it’s really none of those things. Because Thichila is one of those perfumes that happens to be composed in an Eastern style and uses complex-smelling, exotic naturals, many people – mostly Westerners – may mistake its complexity for a matter of construction. As a matter of fact, Thichila is simply one big bridge built between two massively complex materials – a natural Thai oud oil and a big, rustic myrrh. These two monoliths happen, in this case, to share a peculiarly rubbery-rooty-oily-anisic character that makes it difficult to tell where one ends and the other takes over. I find Thichila fascinating precisely because of this.

The Thai oud smells charmingly like the inside of a party balloon or a bouncy castle – plasticky, rubbery, with the far-off twang of trampled fairground straw and sticky, jammy-fruity children’s handprints. It reminds me very much of one of FeelOud’s more unusual-smelling oud oils, whose name I can’t recall right now, but which smelled like the air that escapes from plastic lunchboxes that you’re opening for the first time in three months when the new term is starting.

At some point, the sweet, plasticky rubber tube of oud rolls into the scent of myrrh – gloomy and rubbery, but also sweet and crunchy, like giant golden sugar crystals dipped in anise and spread in a hard, glittery paste across your skin. I think Thichila is, on balance, a great perfume, but fair warning – you have to love this particular style of oud oil and this particular sort of myrrh for it to be a success for you. A very specific perfume, therefore, for a very specific taste.

Sutera Ungu (Agar Aura) – Myrrhic Oud

Some oud oils are so complex that they can display notes such as mint, white flowers, honey, and ambergris without actually containing a speck of these materials. In oud cannon, it is usually Chinese oud oils that are known to feature notes of myrrh, but this is a great example of a myrrhic oud oil that actually comes from one of my favorite oud terroirs, which is Malaysia.

Distilled from wood from the Terengganu region of Malaysia, Sutera Ungu displays both characteristics from the fruity Crassna and the typical Malaysian structure. Cutting past all the gobbledygook, what this means is that there is a complex series of shifts from top to bottom, often separating into two layers – smoke on top, and fruity leather beneath. Agarwood from the Terengganu region is said to be particularly perfumey and rich, a theory borne out by this oil.

Immediately, I can smell smoke and fruited wood, backed by a smoky incense quality. Once the saturnine drama of the opening settles a bit, it is possible to discern subtle little gradients of color and tone. There are waves of freshly-stripped bark, clear furniture polish, green apple skin, and fermenting dried fruit, all dispersed within a boozy vapor akin to dried fruits soaking in brandy for Christmas pudding. You get all this and more, filtered through a haze of incense smoke.

As pure oud oils go, this is perfumey in the way of an older Chanel extrait, and I am thinking of vintage Coco Parfum in particular here (something about the rich fruits in brandy feel). In the heart, the smoke parts to reveal an earthy myrrh note, old wooden chests, and, darting through the darkness, the reddish iodine snap of pure saffron threads soaked in oil. None of these materials exist in Sutera Ungu as notes, you understand – just their nuance.  

But the show is not over just yet. In a whiplash move, the oil circles back on itself to the dry, incensey woodsmoke that greeted the nose in the topnotes. Sutera Ungu is a rich, complex, and thoroughly enjoyable Malaysian oil experience from top to bottom. It is both an oud oil and a proper perfume in its own right. I highly recommend Agar Aura oils to beginners because they are exceptionally smooth, light-to-medium weight in terms of darkness and possessed of a depth of flavor that does not sacrifice legibility.   

L’Eau Trois (Diptyque) – Piney Myrrh

Most of the older Diptyques smell like ancient medicinal salves made out of crushing various barks, spices, and unguents down into a fiery yellow paste and applied to an open wound (Eau Lente, L’ Eau). L’ Eau Trois flips the trope a little, taking it outside to the sunburnt hillsides of Greece or Southern France where the healer combs up tufts of wild rosemary, pine needles, and mastic from the maquis, and uses his cocaine fingernail to dig out sticky yellow globules of myrrh and pine sap from ancient, shrubby trees bent over with age and wind, before singeing it all over a fire so that greenery takes on a burnt, bitter flavor, and mashing it all down to a paste in a pestle and mortar.

Smoky, wild, and herbaceous, L’Eau Trois this is myrrh at its most confrontational. It smells of incense, yes, but also of bitter greenery that will either kill you or cure you if ingested. Less like a perfume than something born of the bowels of the earth.    

Balsamo della Mecca (Abdes Salaam Attar) – Sanctifying Myrrh

Two versions of this scent exist – an eau de parfum and an attar. Here I discuss the attar, which, to my nose, is distinguished by its use of myrrh.

Although the crepuscular darkness of the resins is essentially the same from eau de parfum to attar, Balsamo della Mecca attar has a very different texture and therefore a completely different feel. Whereas the original is so dry that it threatens to ignite on the skin at any moment, the attar is a concentrated tar, like molasses seeping from a rusty pipe. Dense, sticky fir balsam, myrrh, frankincense, cade, and who knows what else, all boiled down to a medicinal salve one might rub onto an infection. Despite its opacity, it feels purifying.

The labdanum is downplayed in the attar, allowing the rubbery, fungal saltiness of myrrh to take the spotlight. By corollary, the eau de parfum is dustier and sweeter, thick with labdanum. Given its greater diffusiveness, the eau de parfum has a spiritual, if not ecclesiastical, feel; the attar, on the other hand, feels gothic and a little bit sinister. Put it this way –  I would wear the eau de parfum to Midnight Mass, and the attar to an exorcism.  

Little Egypt (BPAL) – Honeyed Myrrh

Little Egypt is a bright, resinous honey scent with a sharp green calamus note running through it to keep things fresh. All the honeyed, sticky sweetness of myrrh has been drawn out and emphasized in this scent, but none of its anisic or earthy-mushroomy nuances. This makes for a very sweet blend indeed, but the inherent smokiness of myrrh resin, plus that crisp calamus note, does a good job of holding back the syrup. Myrrh fanatics may want to hunt this one down.

La Myrrhe (Serge Lutens) – Elegant Myrrh

Pairing the fatty, soapy aspect of myrrh with a spray of fatty, soapy aldehydes is genius because, like any solid marriage, they compensate for each other’s failings. The fizzy aldehydes lift the heavy resin up into space, exploding it into stardust, while the bitter, rubbery characteristics of myrrh add depth and drama to the lower register of aldehydes, lending it a rooty, sub-woofer substance just as the champagne bubbles begin to fade away. In the base, a creamy jasmine and sandalwood turn up to mitigate the ‘rubber ball’ astringency of the myrrh, essentially taking over the reins from the sweet, effervescent aldehydes.   

Because the aldehydes in La Myrrhe smells very much like the kind used in Chanel No. 5 (fatty, soapy, waxy, slightly rosy), many people find it to resemble No. 5, though to my nose, it smells rather like Chanel No. 22 with its Fanta-and-incense-on-steroids mien – with one key difference. La Myrrhe has a lurid almond-cherry-ade aspect to it that reminds me of Cherry Coke, rather than Fanta. Picture a single candied cherry lifted from a jar of (cough) syrup and dropped into a bag of pure white soap powder, causing the powder to explode outwards and upwards like a cluster bomb.

La Myrrhe is a sensational myrrh fragrance, and unfortunately hard to find these days unless you live in Europe and can order direct from les Salons du Palais Royal in Paris. It is worth the effort and expense, though, especially, if you prefer the gauzier, more light-filled creations of Serge Lutens over the stickier, fruitcake-and-incense ones, like Arabie, Fumerie Turque et al. With the anisic, rubbery bitterness of the resin perfectly juxtaposed against the sweet, frothy soapiness of aldehydes, La Myrrhe will appeal enormously to lovers of Douce Amère, Chanel No. 5 Eau Première, Chanel No. 22, Guerlain Vega, Rêve d’Ossian by Oriza L. Legrand, and Miriam by Tableau de Parfums (Tauer).  

Mirra (Acqua di Parma) – Ambroxan Myrrh

Myrrh my ass. This is Acqua di Parma halfway down the slide from its once glorious position at the top of classic Italian heritage to the mosh pit of bro-pandering the brand is currently strutting around in. A flurry of citrus and herbs in the opening 0.02 seconds of Mirra convinces me that nothing is unforgivable and maybe the brand can claw its way back, but this is quickly drowned in that unnatural concoction that greets me in so many of the ‘perfumes for the modern man’ these days – a vile and droning medley of synthetically radiant Ambroxan or Iso E Super drowned in enough ambery syrup to fell a horse at ten paces.

It depresses me that the bones of Sauvage are everywhere, lurking in even the oldest, most heritage-y of heritage brands, waiting to pop out at me. For all that Luca Turin lauds Italian perfumery as being where it’s at these days, most young passers-by – women and men, professional or preppy – that I smell in Rome smell like this rather than of invigorating lemons of Santa Maria Novella or something cool by Antonio Alessandria.

For me, Mirra is nothing more than sweet, sugared woods inflated with enough Ambroxan to send a thousand chemical ice picks aimed at my head, but for anyone not as sensitized to these woody alcohols, it probably comes across as something gorgeously fresh, clean, and well, radiant. I can see the appeal of stuff like this for those who do not pick up on the awful grimness of those modern aromachemicals. But I feel personally attacked by Mirra and the 967 other modern masculines that smell virtually identical.

Iranzol (Bruno Acampora) – Anachronistic Myrrh

Iranzol is a perfectly-preserved time capsule of a time in perfumery when perfumers were free to use the stinkiest of floral absolutes, plant oils, and resins in their perfumes. Iranzol smells like the seventies, which makes perfect sense because it was launched in the seventies. What is extraordinary is that the formula seems to have remained unchanged since then; this is the perfume in its original form. In a day and age when brands reformulate every few years to keep up with IFRA recommendations, it is a small wonder that something like Iranzol can and does still exist.

The opening is as damply mushroomy as Acampora’s own Musc, brimming with wet soil, freshly-cut mushrooms, raw patchouli oil, and possibly some salty Italian kitchen herbs, like dried lavender and fennel root. There is definitely myrrh in the blend somewhere, helping those wet earth notes along.

Clove is also suspected, because there is an accord here that is half-claggy, half-dusty, like the sour, unwashed smell of sheets folded away while still damp. This accord is both medicinal (clean) and animalic (unwashed, dusty, stale), which, although not entirely pleasant to my nose, is effective at creating an atmosphere of gloomy, faded grandeur. One imagines a dusty chaise longue in an abandoned mansion by the sea somewhere.

The drydown diverges from the central accords found in Musc by finishing up in a dry amber and sandalwood base. It retains, as most of Acampora’s oils do, that brusque connection to the earthier, more aromatic smells of the seventies, when men wore either Jovan Musk or barbershop fougères and shaved with proper soap. In other words, the sandalwood is dry and astringent, and the amber vegetal. No cream, sugar, or butter anywhere in sight. You might have to adjust your television set when attempting Iranzol for the first time – it is neither modern nor easy. It is an anachronism, an earthy scent for those who like the pungent, untouched smells of nature and their fellow human beings.

Sirocco (Solstice Scents) – Caveman Myrrh

First, a sunburst of saffron, its astringent aroma redolent of hay, leather, and iodine. This quickly gives way to the mitti, which smells of wet soil rather than the dry earth of true Indian mitti. Last to emerge is the rubbery, mushroomy myrrh, which smells like the plain essential oil one picks up at the health store, i.e., bitter, saline, and musty. The myrrh dominates the scent completely; once it pops its head around the door, it is here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

In short, don’t trust the scent description given by the company – Sirocco is not the hot, dry ‘desert’ scent billed in the description, but instead, given the prominent role of the myrrh, the fungal scent of caves. If you like the wet, sepulchral side of myrrh, and earthy, medicinal smells in general, then you will love Sirocco. If you are specifically looking for dry heat, deserts, and sand, look elsewhere.

Myrrhe Ardente (Annick Goutal) – Root Beer Myrrh

A dry spackle of resin at first, golden, crunchy, and slightly herbal – austere enough to wear to the bank – that becomes steadily stickier and gummier with a heavy pour of tonka, amber, and honey. When I wear this, I can almost feel the myrrh crystallizing in huge chunks on my arm, thick enough to smash out into a resinous paste.

There is also a nigh-on-bitter smack of cherry cough syrup floating against something medicinally creamy, which is essentially what Americans know as the ‘root beer float’ flavor – this is a pronounced characteristic of myrrh that comes out to play a lot anywhere there is amber or vanilla.

I would place this in the same group as Myrrhiad, i.e., a dry-creamy myrrh amber thickened up with lots of licorice-scented vanilla in the background, designed to soothe and cosset rather than excite. I sold my bottle a long time ago, however, once I began to perceive a piercing woody aromachemical note that ran rampant all over the scent’s original ‘weighted blanket’ premise.     

Cashmiri Black (Agarscents Bazaar) – Coca Cola Myrrh

Cashmiri Black is a wonderfully odd mukhallat that nudges Agarscents Bazaar out of its comfort zone of Indian-style musks and ambers, and into a slightly more ‘niche’ perfume area. The blend opens with an accord that smells like salted buckwheat honey or molasses smeared over pieces of hardcore Scandinavian licorice, shot through with plumes of sooty fireside smoke. Black pepper, oily and pungent, explodes all over, recalling several modern Comme des Garcons efforts such as Black Pepper and Black.

A firecracker dose of saffron soon joins the fray, streaking across the dark canvas created by a fusion of tarry, resinous myrrh, creating an effect that is half Idole (Lubin) and half Nesquik-y Darbar attar. There is a faintly fizzy Coca Cola effect providing lift in the background. Thanks to the myrrh, the texture is chewy and medicinal, with a hard-boiled, anisic blackness. It is smoky and cocoa-dry, but this syrupy facet lends a nice textural counterpoint.

Cashmiri grows drier and smokier as time wends on, finishing up the ride as a tinder-box mixture of fiery cedarwood, myrrh, powdery (chocolate) musk, malty licorice, and charred woods. Cashmiri Black is an excellent alternative to expensive Arabian style niche smoke-and-resin bombs such as Black Afgano or Black Gemstone.

Parfum Sacre (Caron) – Cashmere Myrrh

Parfum Sacre is one of those perfumes that I find hard to write about because it hooked me early, at a tender time of my life when I needed a Big Perfume Love, and therefore is utterly resistant to any attempt at objective analysis.

If pushed, I would say it smells like an ancient carved sandalwood chest filled to the brim with myrrh resin reduced to a fine golden powder and tender pink curlicues of rose soap loving carved off a block of Camay with a pocketknife. It smells full and soft, like cashmere, but studded with little kitten licks of black pepper and lemon that trickle the back of the throat.

The myrrh is fuzzy and warm, especially in the round-bellied vintage eau de parfum, where only its muted fatty-soapy-waxy facets have been coaxed out. In the modern eau de parfum, the myrrh smells sharper, more astringent, and woodier, thanks to the vigorous dosing of black pepper to compensate for the lower quality of sandalwood. Best of all, perhaps, is the salty, golden radiance sent in by natural ambergris to lift the myrrh and woods in the now discontinued Parfum.

But even the thin, reedy version of Parfum Sacre available to buy today possesses that gently pepper, rosy, soapy quality that says ‘Mother’ to me. It therefore continues to be one of my Big, Albeit Incoherently Described Perfume Loves.

Myrrhe Impériale (Armani Privé) – Obnoxiously Loud Myrrh

Yes, Myrrhe Impériale is impressively loud and rich and voluminous. But once you get past the clattering noise of the opening – oiled galoshes, radiating resin, treacly licorice – you realize that it is not much more than a powerful fruitcake amber dressed up with so much Amber Xtreme or Norlimbanol that even a knuckle daub’s worth is unbearable. It is like a large, expensively dressed man whose braying laugh and physical volume seems to swell to fill the entire room, impregnating all the available air pockets until you feel you will still be able to hear/smell/taste him from two countries away. These niche behemoths are designed to be impress you at ten paces, steam-rolling over any distinguishing features other than its own powerful, magnetic radiance. An olfactory Charles Atlas. Meh.    

Sources of Samples/Bottles: All reviews above are based on samples, decants, or full bottles that I have purchased with my own money, swapped for with friends, or tested in store. My blog is not monetized, I make no money from my content, and if you want to quote me or a piece of my writing, go right ahead (just please credit me as the source). I am neither a shill nor an unpaid marketing arm of a brand, i.e., I do not accept free bottles or samples in return for a positive review. If I like something, or find something interesting, then I will write about it. You might not always like my opinions, but you may trust that they are mine and mine alone.     

Cover Image: Photo by Y S on Unsplash