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The Musk Collection by Areej Le Doré: Reviews

20th March 2024

I can’t help feeling sad that ‘regular’ people who just love a good, well-constructed perfume rather than obsessing on one or two of their constituent raw materials will likely never get to smell the Musk series from Areej Le Doré.  Except for one, none of the perfumes in this collection are terribly animalic, all of them use exquisite materials like real sandalwood, oud, and jasmine, and most of them smell like whole, actualized perfumes rather than the sum of their parts.  But then, the people who love perfumes for the entirety of their composition or for the personalized soundtrack they provide to the mundanity of the everyday are upset enough that the 2014 Dior Addict or the 2009 Hermes Hiris are no longer available, so can you imagine their feelings about perfumes that sell out and become unobtanium in the space of a weeks, if not days? 

 

Perhaps it is best that only the oud heads and sandalwood obsessives that lurk in dark corners of the Internet get to smell these.  Most Areej Le Doré perfumes smell like proper perfumery bases bought in from somewhere, dressed in a careful arrangement of natural oils and essences that the perfumer has sourced or distilled himself – incredibly silky-funky ouds that smell of wood rot but also of hay and mint, the powdered goodness of well-resinated sandalwood, buttery white flowers, or the citric, briny spackle of white ambergris.  Sounds amazing, right?  And it is.  But what the perfume-wearing GenPop want is for a beloved perfume to smell reliably the same from one day to the next, and ideally, from one bottle to the next.  The naturals used in Areej Le Dore perfumes are too mercurial and unreproducible to guarantee that level of security.

 

Take Crème de la Crème, for example.  My favorite of this series and the easiest to wear, it has nonetheless never smelled the same way on me the three times I have donned it.   The first wear induced rare feelings of euphoria, because it reminded me of a soft, vintage floral perfume – L’Air du Temps perhaps – worn down to a barely-there skin scent clinging to the baby hairs at a woman’s neck.  Soft yet strong, like a photo I recently saw of Jean Harlow one day before her death from kidney failure, her delicate yet bloated frame held firmly in place by her co-stars Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon, who seemed to sense she was near collapse. 

 

This version of  Crème de la Crème was sweet, clove-ish, dried-rose-petalish, shot through with the citrusy brightness of ambergris and bathed in the dusty but resinous sweetness of sandalwood.  There was a absinthe-like note floating around in there too, reminding me of the cloudy, bittersweet herbaciousness of Douce Amère (Serge Lutens).  The final aftertaste, however, was of the delicate Indian attar-like floral sandalwood of Alamut by Lorenzo Villoresi, only airy and astringent where the Villoresi is sodden with sweet milk.

 

The second and third wearing immediately revealed the minty-camphoric sting of a clean island oud – like a Borneo, but in reality, an oud from the Philippines – sweeping in the medicinal radiance of hospital-grade antiseptic fluid.  How had I missed this the first time around?  Now I could smell the sharpness of lime leaf as well as the familiar richness of the sandalwood, which in its second outing smelled like a century old sandalwood elephant ground down into dust for zukoh incense.  Reddish wood, all powder on the surface but with globules of calcified amber rolling around like a bag of marbles underneath. This is immediately recognizable as real-deal Indian sandalwood, its tart, yoghurty nuances darting in and out of the sweet richness, coating your tongue with the kind of roundness and balance you really don’t get with sandalwood synthetics.

 

Roundness doesn’t mean sweet or feminine, though.  The slightly mossy bitterness at the center of ambergris gives the sandalwood a fern-like character, making me think of those big, old fashioned fougères, redolent of shaving soap, oil of cloves, and bay rhum.  The sweet-sour-soapy finish of the sandalwood reminds me a lot of Jicky, but also by extension, Musk Lave, except that in Crème de la Crème, there is a faint spicy-floral breeze that nudges it into the realm of the Caron carnation (Bellodgia or Poivre).

 

Third time around, like the second time, but with more pronounced soapy-leathery-amber notes that made me think of the floral, oiled galoshes of Knize Ten Golden Edition, the plasticky ylang of Chanel No. 5 eau de parfum, and of Pears soap.  This is not unpleasant, just surprising.  Perhaps it is the creamy, dusty airiness of Crème de la Crème that makes it so quixotic and mutable.  Like one of those shifting sand pictures that changes every time you shake the frame, it softly accommodates whatever fantasy or feeling you project onto it.

 

 

Cuirtis opens with the most divine, almost mouthwatering accord of sweet, cuminy bread, a fruity dill, aromatics, and a peach-skin osmanthus.  This may sound odd, but I love the effect.  I think the word I’m looking for here is hawthorn.  There is a familiar chord here that stirs up some good scent memories for me, one I can only really identify as being broadly ‘peak L’Artisan Parfumeur’ in tone – a touch of the dry, smoky (but also fruity) nagamortha of Timbuktu, some of the complicated whiskey-vetiver-old orris soap of Dzongkha, and even a touch of the sweet, armpitty doughnut of Al Oudh, perfumes that have fallen slightly out of fashion or have been discontinued but still remain part of my personal perfume hall of greats.

 

The dry, smoky birch tar, when it bursts through this almost watery-fruity-aromatic dillweed layer, does indeed smell like a fine cuir, but not one produced by Chanel or Dior.  Rather, I smell a lot of Ambre Fétiche (Annick Goutal) here, with its parched, leathery benzoin simplicity – also characterized by a strong birch tar note, by the way – as well as a sliver of the melony smoke of Breath of God by Lush and some of the watery, metallic violet leaf and hay dandiness of the late, great Cuir Pleine Fleur (Heeley). 

 

Thus far, this review has been one long run-on sentence of other perfume references, but I am not suggesting that Cuirtis is overly referential.  Indeed, it is very much its own animal.  But whenever I bump into a smell that jolts me back in time to 2014 when I was happily discovering the perfume greats on my own, I scramble to triangulate the references in my perfume mind palace so that I can settle on the source of the big feelings I am feeling.  Though ultimately I can’t identify what single element is triggering me in Cuirtis, I rather love for its own good self.  It is incredibly aromatic, herbal tincture-like, but also sweet, smoky, and dry, all at once.

 

 

Royal Barn is clearly named as a sop to Russian Adam’s die-hard animalics fans who egg him on to dirtier and dirtier things with each collection.  I suspect they would prefer for him not only to edge up to the great, steaming piles of horse shit in this putative barn but to plunge his hands in and start smearing it all over the stalls.  But the name’s a con.  This is the animalic floral oriental-chypre of the collection, and as such, is only dirty in the way Bal a Versailles (Jean Desprez) is dirty, meaning that underpinning the morass of rich, creamy florals, fungal oud, greenish rose, and spiky woods is a lascivious schmear of honeyed civet, there to add that unmistakably ‘French’ je ne sais quoi of soiled panties.

 

At first, everything is as dense as a brick of floral absolutes and waxes mashed together, and it feels rather wet and slurry-like in texture.  Then two things happen simultaneously.  First, the perfume dries up, with a leathery tone that reminds me of castoreum, but may just be the hay absolute sucking all the moisture out of the barn.  Second, the fruitiness of the champaca-rose tandem and the crisp, green-white juiciness of palmarosa somehow make a break for it, peeking out from behind the barn wall.  The contrast between the leathery, dry (austere) civet and hay layer and the fruity, creamy, almost girlish pop of peach and egg yolk yellow florals is amazing.

 

Now, real talk – does this really smell like a barn?  Well, civet – the real stuff, as used here – can be terribly sharp, honey-ish in its high-toned shriek, and foul even when its floral nuances are detected.  However, when used judiciously in a perfume, it just adds this hot, whorish glow to the florals that magnifies their impact.  Royal Barn is much drier, muskier, and ten times more pungent than Civet de Nuit but they share a similarly fuzzy, under-panted warmth.  If this is a barn, then it’s a clean one, ripe with animal but not fetid with neglect.

 

Regular perfume-wearing folk will want to know where it falls on the skank-o-meter.  It is less animalic than La Nuit (Paco Rabanne) and Salome (Papillon), but more animalic than Bal a Versailles (Jean Deprez) and vintage Gold Man (Amouage).  I would put this on par with Kouros (Yves Saint Laurent), but this is far more floral, so imagine Ubar (Amouage) with a drop of Kouros mixed in.   

 

 

Paradise Soil reminds me very much of a certain era in perfume making – not so long ago – when everyone was flipping out about these huge, dirty florid fragrances that were slightly crazy in their construction, smashing together untrammeled Big White (or Yellow) Florals with thick musks and enough nag champa and patchouli to stop a hippie in their tracks.  I’m talking stuff like Manoumalia (Le Nez), Daphne (Comme des Garcons), Tubéreuse III (Animale) by Histoires de Parfum, Le Maroc Pour Elle (Tauer), Mauboussin, etc.  If you love that style of fragrance, then you’ll love this too.  Paradise Soil smells like if tuberose was a dog and that dog rolled around in muck and is begging with his eyes to get back in the house but you just cannot be mad at him.

 

Huge armfuls of damp jasmine, ylang, and tuberose are mashed into the humid black earth of a tropical jungle onto which all the petals drop, decaying over time to make a rich mass of soil organic content, except that half the soil is made up of pulverized Pan di Stelle cookies.  So, florals and chocolate, yes, but not truffled, and despite the saffron, not vegetal.  More dry chocolate biscuit in the Montale Chocolate Greedy manner than the melted dark chocolate of Noir de Noir.

 

My only complaint about Paradise Soil is that the florals – especially the tuberose, which I feel is the pushiest flower in this particular bouquet – become too sharp and insistent in their sweetness, the sort that is so intense that it almost tastes bitter on the back of your tongue.  There is a distinct bubblegum tone as well, which when added into all the muddy sweetness going on here tips it into what I call Nights in White Satin territory.  Skirting uncomfortably close to the overall sledgehammer effect of Giorgio and Amarige, I can’t really love it past this point.  It feels like wearing fur and two inches of panstick foundation on a hot day.

 

And unfortunately, the underlying oud notes are not strong or woody enough to claw this back into neutral for me.  Paradise Soil is somewhat in the vein of Ambre de Coco or the other chocolate-oud explorations of the house (Russian Oud possibly being the most famous), but this is a far sharper, more white floral-forward version.  Still – I think fans of the big, satiny floral-incense extravaganzas of the late 1990s would absolutely love this.

 

 

Forbidden Flower is not a flower and ‘forbidden’ is all wrong too because that is a word that promises something naughty but nice.  This is not nice.  Vibe: Industrial waste but make it grape-flavored. 

 

I have worn Forbidden Flower on the skin exactly one time and that was still once too many.  I am smelling it now again from a paper strip in the hope that I can figure out – in a more rational manner – what exactly it is about this thing that makes it so traumatizing.  I mean, technically, I know it must be the skunk.  But why.  Why, Adam.

 

This is a deeply disturbing scent.  In the opening notes, the aroma of fruity green leaves and milkweed mixes with the inorganic fumes of acetone, mouthwash, mercury, and what I can only describe as the liquid from a leaky battery.  The fumes are so potent that I feel light-headed and more than a bit high.  It smells both like the school supplies closet (solvents, paper, magic markers) and a long-abandoned farmstead with metal farm machinery rusting away between the weeds and ditches that a family of wild cats or indeed skunks have marked repeatedly as their personal pissing patch. 

 

This mix of organic and inorganic stinks is deeply original but unpleasant, in a similar vein to M/Mink by Byredo (which Forbidden Flower does not resemble at all except in its metallic weirdness).   It eventually dries down to a rubbery, latexy accord technically assembled by a doughy benzoin, patchouli, and cedar but the blackest myrrh in all but name.   This sort of thing – vaguely similar to Narcotico (Meo Fusciuni), But Not Today (Filippo Sorcinelli) and Vierges et Toreros (Etat Libre d’Orange) in that they are all dark, bloody-metallic takes on the cedar/patchouli leather theme  – is just stomach turning to me, even if at an intellectual level I admit that it is original and high concept. 

 

I started this collection review by saying how sorry I was that normal frag heads never get to sample these perfumes, but in the case of Forbidden Flower, I think it is for the best.

 

 

 

Source of samples:  Samples sent to me free of charge for review by Russian Adam.

 

Cover Image:  Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash

 

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Areej Le Doré Exclusive Attar Collection: Thoughts and Reviews

10th January 2023

 

 

Thoughts

 

As of 2023, anyone stumbling onto Areej Le Doré for the first time might be a bit confused about what the house does and what it stands for.  After all, there are regular perfumes but also mukhallats (oils), a series of attars commissioned from traditional attar makers, and now, a series of attars that the brand has distilled or mixed itself.  A newcomer would be forgiven for wondering if Russian Adam is a perfumer, a distiller, an educator, or a patron of traditional attar wallahs.

 

In fact, he wears all of those hats, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes separately.  His evolution from the small, two-person ‘Book of Oud’ oil outfit in London (circa 2013) to the artisan oud distillery of FeelOud (circa 2015) to the luxury French-inspired, but Eastern materials-based operation of Areej Le Doré (circa 2016) is a trajectory worthy of study and admiration.

 

For the perfume enthusiast, though, it is worth taking a moment to unpack the context of any new Areej Le Doré ‘drop’.  The original spray-based perfumes released by the brand in collections of four or five perfumes each year (which normally follow the pattern of an oud, a musk, an ambergris, and a floral) were where most of the brand’s fan base came on board, and where most of the support still pools.  These annual collections see Russian Adam in full-on compositional mode, mixing his own distillations and those of others into precise formulas of bases and accords for a result that reads as perfumey as a Guerlain. 

 

But 2022 saw Russian Adam launch a passion project that was both a stylistic and commercial departure, namely, a series of traditionally distilled Indian attars (which he did not make himself but entrusted to an experienced attar distiller), quickly followed by a set of spray-based perfumes that used traditional Indian attar perfumery as a springboard into something more conventionally perfume-like.

 

The traditional Indian attars (thoughts and reviews here) were Russian Adam with his educator hat on and his perfumer hat off.  Deeply passionate about Indian attar perfumery, he wanted to give his followers (yes, I use the term ‘followers’ deliberately) a set of benchmarks for what a rose (gulab) or jasmine (motia) smells like when distilled into sandalwood in the old Indian manner.  Pure, linear, and delicate, these attars were less perfumes than they were a teaching moment.  If you smelled anything complex in them, it was more because the raw materials themselves are naturally complex than any compositional skill (since traditional attars are distilled rather than composed).  These attars were intended to serve as a primer on the building blocks of ancient Eastern perfumery for the attar-based spray perfumes to follow.  But they were also a gentle reminder to attar enthusiasts that a rose gulab produced laboriously and painstakingly in a deg and bhapka is absolutely not the same thing as the ‘rose gulab’ you can get off IndiaMart for $8 a liter.

 

The spray-based perfumes produced as part of the History of Attar collection (reviews here) were not so much an extension of the Indian attars as they were riffs on a theme.  Here, Russian Adam put his perfumer hat back on and took the more complex Indian distilled attars like shamama and majmua – involving multiple co-distillations, add-ins of choyas and macerations – as the starting point for an artistic exploration that, while still remaining true to the essence of traditional Indian perfumery, were far more in line with the perfumeyness of Areej Le Doré’s core annual collections to date.

 

It is difficult to get a read on how successful a collection is based on online critical reception alone, but if the Basenotes thread is anything to go by, the History of Attar collection was not popular with the core group of enthusiasts who onboarded the Areej Le Doré train for its Siberian Musk and Russian Oud-type output.  Which is not that surprising, really.  If your buy-in to a brand is big, rich, Arabian-style compositions, then there is bound to be some whiplash if one year your supplier brings out a product based on Indian simplicity and purity instead.  On the face of things, we all want the artisan perfumers we support to be free to pursue their artistic passions and vision.  But where the money from one collection fuels the purchase, sourcing, and commissioning of rare raw materials and distillations for the next, the stakes are high indeed.  When a product veers this close to being bespoke, you have to listen to what your customers want, or they take themselves and their wallets off to find another altar of rare essences to worship at.

 

Personally, I think the History of Attar spray-based fragrance collection was one of the brand’s best and most accomplished.  This may be partially due to the fact that I already loved and had studied traditional Indian attars, so understood what it was that Russian Adam was trying to do.  But even from the perspective of a bog-standard fragrance reviewer, Ambre de Coco, Al Majmua, and Beauty and the Beast were not only an incredibly artistic re-imagining of age-old Indian attar perfumery themes but improvements on earlier perfumes in terms of clarity and intentionality.  For example, though I liked Antiquity, I found it impressive due more to the quality of the Cambodi oud oil that had been used rather than for its composition.  Ambre de Coco, which shares something of the same nutty-smutty-smeary texture of yaks in a barn, uses shamama co-distillations of over 50-60 plant-based materials, deer musks, and cocoa to arrive at a picture of warm fur.  It is more complete, a fuller fleshing out of a similar vision, yet conveyed in a less ‘muddy’ or cluttered frame.  I believe that, in time, history will judge this collection more clear-sightedly and it will settle favorably into the deep lines of our experience with Areej Le Doré.

 

So, where does the Exclusive Attar collection fall against this backdrop?  In terms of simplicity and intent, this may be viewed as an extension of the History of Attar attar collection but nudged strongly in the direction of a mukhallat-based style of perfumery by focusing on raw materials more commonly found in Middle Eastern or Arabian perfumery, such as Taifi rose, deer musk, and ambergris.  This is Russian Adam in distiller mode[1], inching back to the interests and preferences of his core fan base but still working in a style that is as minimalistic as the Indian attars.  Wait for the next core collection if you were not a fan of the History of Attar collection or if you prefer the brand’s core collections of spray-based perfumes.  The Exclusive Attar collection is for aesthetes for whom hours of contemplation of the simple beauty of vintage musks or aged ambergris muddled together in a thimbleful of vintage sandalwood is the point of the exercise.

 

To wit, the perfumes in this collection are all rather soft and linear, relying on the inherent complexity of the raw materials to do all the heavy lifting rather than the composition itself.  In other words, if any of these ever come across as perfumey or strong, it is due to some innate characteristic of the material used rather than any conscious arrangement.   This collection would also work for people who just love natural, aged Indian sandalwood because the twenty-year-old sandalwood these attars are mixed into is insanely rich (sometimes even taking over the blend entirely).  But even if you are a big fan of Middle Eastern mukhallats and already own a few examples of the genres explored here, the reasonable price point for high quality stuff like chocolatey vintage musks, sparkling white ambergris, and aged sandalwood oil makes the Exclusive Attar collection a pretty good investment.

 

 

 

Reviews

 

Photo by Roksolana Zasiadko on Unsplash

 

Musk de Taif

 

Beautiful and moving in its simplicity – a gentle blur of Taif roses folded into cushiony musks and creamy sandalwood. It reminds me a lot of Rose TRO by Amouage, which follows a similar model (roses + creamy woods), but with the zestier, more peppery Taif rose from Saudi Arabia rather than with the Turkish rose otto used in the Amouage.  To a newcomer or to anyone with zero perfume experience at all, this will simply smell like the exotic, Eastern ideal of a rosy attar we all hold vaguely in our heads without thinking too much about it.  The aroma here is a classically pleasing one.  The bright, lemony green and black pepper nuances of the Taif rose send sparks flying against the creamy background, which in turn softens the sharp, fiery edges of the rose.  The deer musks here are more of a textural agent than a major contributor to the scent profile – they feather the outer lines of the rose and woods into one fluffy, amorphous mass.    

 

 

 

Civet Bomb

 

Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

 

Not only are animalic aromas are not a monolith but how you process them will vary according to individual experience with animalic smells in general.  Smells come to all of us filtered through our childhood memories, mental associations, and biases.   For example, because I worked on a farm, most deer musk smells warm and round and alive to me, even though the animal from whence it came is long dead.  Castoreum always smells dry to the point of being parched, which is why I like it less.  For a long time, I found some force-aged Hindi oils to smell like bile and billy goat, an association I had to work hard to get past.

 

But civet?  The most difficult of all for me, but of course, because these perceptions are so individual, perhaps maybe not difficult at all for someone else.  To me, civet smells really sharp, leathery, and foul, perhaps a bit floral in dilution.  The word that usually comes to mind for me when smelling civet paste is ‘unholy’.

 

But while those properties are definitely present in Civet Bomb, two things save it for me.  First, the civet paste has been co-distilled with rose, meaning that the sharpness of its funk has been softened somewhat.  Second, the co-distillation has accentuated the geraniol content of the rose, so there is this minty-camphoraceous greenness floating over the civet paste note that lifts it and freshens its breath.  Sharpness is exchanged for a lively bitterness, and this is a good trade off.

 

Be forewarned that the animalic quality of civet paste is still very much in evidence, but its inherent foulness comes more from the ‘staleness’ of well-rotted leather or wood or old radiators rather than from the anal secretion of a civet cat.  As with all of these attars, Civet Bomb ends up wrapped in a thick blanket of that buttery old sandalwood Russian Adam is using here.  In the far drydown – if attars can be said to have a proper drydown at all – the lingering civet and sandalwood aroma reminds me of the handsome maleness of Jicky or Mouchoir de Monsieur in their far reaches, albeit much simpler and less mossy-herbal.  

 

 

 

Royal Musk

 

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

 

Like Hemmingway’s writing, Royal Musk boasts a structure that is straight-forward and devoid of frills, yet still manages to wring an imagined wealth of feeling and depth from the one or two elements it contains.   Made from stirring a tincture of a deer musk pod so old and dried out that all the urinous, sharper edges have long disappeared into that old, deep, buttery Indian Government sandalwood oil that the house is using, this is the rare musk-based attar that might be described as delicious.

 

The opening notes are raisiny, with dried fruit mingling with dark chocolate (or actually cocoa) for a slight panforte impression.  There are no animalic notes whatsoever, yet you can tell that it is deer musk, mostly because of the hint of plastic around the topnotes and its subtly furry, velvety texture, but also because if you are patient and quiet enough, you can also smell a hint of booziness from the tincture.  This is really very nice – dark and sensuous, with that cocoa-and-dried-fruit aspect that makes me think of the pleasures of deep winter, like drowsing under a blanket with a cat or watching the light flicker in the coals of a dying fire.   

 

 

 

Royal Amber

 

Photo by Kendall Scott on Unsplash

 

Here, the intensely buttery, savory vintage sandalwood oil initially overwhelms the composition, for once much stronger than the element with which it is paired, here, a piece of white ambergris from the West of Ireland ground to a fine powder.  Sandalwood is usually the quiet portion of an attar, carrying the other natural essences and adding only a depth and warmth that would otherwise be missing.  Here, however, as well as in the other attars, the age of the sandalwood oil used means that its santalols have deepened into this rich, buttery, concentrated essence of wood that asserts its own character and quite forcefully too.  It smells sweet and savory at once and feels as thickly resinous as an amber accord.  As a sandalwood fan, I am not complaining.  However, part of me does wonder if using a younger, less venerable quality of sandalwood would have allowed the other materials, such as this delicate ambergris, to shine through more clearly.

 

The tart, rubbery ping of the wood esters at the tippy top of the sandalwood oil interact with something briny in the ambergris to create an opening that smells momentarily iodic, like those dark iron syrups you take to correct anemia.  Then the rich, sweet sandalwood notes settle in and start spreading their warmth.  For the longest time, I can’t smell the ambergris.  Until you take your nose and attention off it, and then return, and yes, there it is.

 

Smelling white ambergris – the oldest, most aged specimen of ambergris that has been cured for decades in the ocean and under the sun – is a notoriously peekaboo experience.  There is a faint smattering of nuances so ephemeral and fleeting that they tend to exist like flashes of light at the outer edges of your field of smell-o-vision, making you doubt your own nose.  Here, it smells subtly of sweet, sun-dried minerals and salt on female skin and old newspapers and also a little of morning breath.  The darker you go with ambergris, the marshier the mammalian funk.  In Royal Amber, the only truly animalic part of the experience is the hint of halitosis that sometimes appears and sometimes does not, so mostly what you smell here is the sweet, bright, dusty minerals, mica, and salt-encrusted skin.

 

Ambergris is not amber resin, of course, but the resinousness of that buttery sandalwood does ultimately create an amber-like impression.  The powdery salinity of the ambergris gently strafes the ‘amberiness’ of the drydown, lifting and aerating what might otherwise have been very heavy.  A note about the powderiness here, as powder is a trigger word for some.  It is subtle but perceptible, like the gilded baby powder of Shalimar’s ambery drydown, but not as dense as Teint de Neige.  The slight brininess of the ambergris also offsets the powder somewhat, leavening as deftly as it does the buttered sandalwood.

 

Overall, though, this is a subtle, soft scent that is far simpler than my description suggests.  But I do find it gentle kaleidoscope of nuances entrancing.  It is a private sort of experience on its own; as a layering agent, I imagine that it would act like a bellows on a dying fire, breathing new life and dimension into whatever scent you wear on top.  The more perfume-like equivalent to Royal Amber might be Yeti Ambergris Attar 2012 by Rising Phoenix Perfumery.

 

 

 

Zam Zam

 

Photo by Vera De on Unsplash

 

Although this attar is said to be the most complex and perfumey of the entire collection, I personally don’t perceive it as such.  Zam Zam features a fiercely medicinal saffron distillation mixed into the vintage sandalwood used throughout the collection, and oddly, I find that the two materials bring out the worst in each other.  The high-toned wood esters fizzing at the top of the sandalwood accentuate the iodine-like properties of the saffron, so what I mostly smell is a slightly pitchy, medicinal accord that is too astringent to allow me to relax into the experience.  Once the vaporousness of the topnotes settle, the sandalwood heart notes bank everything down in a fine, brown layer of woody warmth, which in turn allows the saffron to play more of its traditional ‘exoticizing’ role for the sweet, buttery amber-woods.  I don’t smell anything particularly floral.  The saffron, a ferociously strong material, is able to keep a vein of something metallic coursing through the creaminess from top to toe, like a flash of electricity.  I find it Zam Zam striking, but angular and again, simpler than its billing suggests.

 

 

 

  

[1] To be precise, Russian Adam made two of the collection’s attars (Civet Comb and Zam Zam) by distilling the materials into the sandalwood oil carrier, while the other three attars (Musk de Taif, Royal Amber, and Royal Musk) were composed by macerating materials in oil and mixing these macerations into tinctures and sandalwood oil to complete the compositions.

 

 

Source of Sample:  Sent to me for free by the brand for review. 

 

Cover Image:  Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash 

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Sundowner by Tauer Perfumes: A Review

14th December 2022

 

Sundowner is interesting because, despite the much advertized chocolate and orange notes, it gets the salivary glands working without being foody.  The first blast is a foghorn of amber, spices, booze, and veiny pipe tobacco, but there is an undertow of medicinal sourness that smells like wood chips left to ferment in a rusty barrel.  The Tauer signature is strong, namely the rubbery smoke reminiscent of freshly creosote-ed fences, the brash salty amber, the piercing cinnamon, all set against a watery floral note that might be rose.  There are, at least initially, some parallels to PHI Une Rose de Kandahar, minus the fruity apricot conserve, and to the muscular expansiveness of L’Air du Desert Marocain.   

 

But the more I wear it, the more I think Sundowner does something special.  In draping the front end with all this almost fermented, grungy funk, Tauer sets the stage for the tobacco note to emerge through a new curtain rather than the usual one of dried fruit, gingerbread, and vanilla.   And, as it turns out, sour is better than sweet when it comes to carving out the true scent of tobacco leaf because Sundowner features one of the best, most true to life renditions of tobacco that I have ever smelled.  It is briny, rich, tart, and sweet all at once.  How this was accomplished, I neither know nor care.  When you find the spirit of tobacco bottled, you just buy it and let it take you on a magic carpet ride every time.

 

 

Source of Sample: I first sampled this in Bertozzini in Rome when I was back for a month in March this year. I bought a full bottle in November from ParfuMarija in Dublin.  

 

Cover Image:   Photo by Ilya Chunin on Unsplash         

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Areej Le Doré History of Attar Collection (Fragrances): Reviews

4th October 2022

 

The first release in the History of Attar Collection was a set of traditionally-distilled attars specifically commissioned by Areej Le Dore to give its customers an idea of what Indian attars are (thoughts and reviews of the attar set here).  This release, on the other hand, is a collection of spray-based fragrances (not oils) made by Russian Adam himself, rather than commissioned from an attar distiller.  Since their composition do revolve around the use and theme of Indian attars, however, it might be useful for readers to read my previous article describing the attar set first.  

 

 

 

Beauty and the Beast

 

Photo by Maksym Sirman on Unsplash

 

I wrote about the new generation of Amouage attars (2021) a while back, but in trying to couch my disappointment in terms of market realities, I skipped over the sense of loss – emotional and patrilineal – of never seeing the likes of Badr al Badour, Al Shomukh, and Al Molook again.  These were mukhallats that successfully positioned feral ouds against the softening backdrops of rose, ambergris, and musk, stoking a love for oud among the heretofore uninitiated.  The first sniff of Beauty and the Beast makes me realize, with great joy, that cultural ‘scent’ patrimony is never lost entirely, but rather, constantly over-written by new entrants like this.   

 

Based on the age-old Middle Eastern custom of pairing the sometimes challengingly sour, regal animalism of Hindi oud (the Beast) with the soft, winey sweetness of rose (the Beauty), Beauty and the Beast doesn’t deviate too dramatically from the basic rose-oud template.  When the starring raw materials are this good, you don’t need to.  The Hindi oud and the rose oils used here are so complex in and of themselves that an experienced perfumer chooses wisely when they leave them alone to work their synergistic magic on each other. 

 

Interestingly, the ouds in Beauty and the Beast have been distilled using rose hydrosols, meaning that the water normally loaded into the still with the oud chips has been replaced with rosewater, the natural by-product of distilling roses.  I am not sure that this makes a difference to the resulting oud oil, but the environmentalist in me likes the thinking around circular economy it implies.  

 

The balancing act the materials perform is nothing short of magisterial.  When the Hindi oud at first challenges the senses with its pungent, feral qualities – think beasts of burden steaming together in a barn, old saddles piled on old wooden barrels in the corner, piss-soaked straw matted into the dirt floor – the rose (not Taifi, for sure, but more likely something like Rosa bourboniana, used to distill attar of roses, or Rosa damascena, used to distill ruh gulab, or a mix) is there merely to soften and sweeten things.  Later, however, when there is more room to breathe, the rose offers up a kaleidoscope of different ‘flavors’, cycling through wine and chocolate to raspberry liquor, Turkish delight, truffles, and finally, that traditional rose-sandalwood ‘attar’ scent.

 

But it is crucial to note that these nuances all unfold in sequence, matching step for step the series of nuances emerging from the Hindi oud.  So, when the oud reveals that regal, spicy leather underpinning so typical of high-quality Hindi ouds, the rose offers up its truffles and wine.  The two materials continue to evolve and in doing so, change the character of the rose-oud pairing we are smelling.  First, the character is pungent and sweet, then it is leathery and winey, then it is dry, woody-spicy and jellied-loukhoum-like.  This evolution, this symbiotic dance, lasts for a whole 24 hours, so you have ample time to luxuriate in its every transition.

 

There is nothing really new or innovative about the rose-oud pairing, but Beauty and the Beast is worth your time and money if you are looking for an exemplar of the heights it can scale when only truly excellent materials are used.  It is strong, rich, long-lasting, but most of all, interesting and beautiful from every angle, from top to toe.  In terms of what is still available in this style today, I would rank Beauty and the Beast alongside The Night (Frederic Malle), Mukhallat Dahn al Oudh Moattaq (Ajmal), Al Hareem (Sultan Pasha Attars), and Al Noukhba Elite Blend (Abdul Samad al Qurashi).  In other words, the fragrances that best capture the feral but regal nature of Hindi oud, balancing it perfectly against dark, sweet roses.  For what it’s worth, my husband, who is a hardcore oud enthusiast, kept muttering stuff, “Good Lord, that is good,” and “Oh, that smells insanely good” all day long every time I wore it.

  

 

 

Ambre de Coco

 

Photo:   Aromatics, spice, and dried plant material for a shamama distillation being loaded into the deg. Photo by Pranjal Kapoor. 

 

Coming across a genuine shamama attar in the wild is like thumbing through a library of slim poetry books and pulling out a tome with the girth of a Ulysses.  Shamama attars, which can take two months of continuous distilling and over 60 separate fragrant materials to make, are so bewilderingly complex that even reading about how they are made is exhausting.  I’ve written about the process here, but in case you haven’t come prepared with sandwiches, a flask of tea, and a map, then let me just tl;dr it for you: an even more aromatic MAAI, wearing a bear pelt.

 

But Ambre de Coco takes it one step further – there is a shamama attar at its heart, but it is wrapped up in a dark, almost bitter, but superbly plush cocoa powder note, stone fruit accords, and a deeply furry impression that suggests that deer musk grains might have been involved at some point.  Complexity-wise, this is like taking Ulysses and wrapping it in a layer of Finnegan’s Wake.

 

Where to begin?  Let’s start with the amber.  Forget the idea of those cozy-vanillic-resinous ambers like Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens), Amber Absolute (Tom Ford) or Ambre Precieux (Maître Parfumeur et Gantier).  This is Indian amber, or what they call shamamatul amber, which is green, mossy, and astringent as hell, as if amber resin was not a resin after all but a stalk of rhubarb or a copper penny.  Indian ambers are lean and a bit stern – there is zero fat on their bones.  Inside this carnivorous structure, the rest of these 50-odd raw materials flow as a swirl of tastes and impressions rather than identifiable notes.  Aromatic grasses mingle with bitter, mossy aromas, wet-smelling herbs, roasted roots, dried berries, calligraphy ink, floral bath salts, and all sorts of dried lichens, leaves, and twigs.  It smells more like something a traditional Chinese medicine man would brew up to cure an infection than a perfume.

 

Now, imagine all this soaked in a rich cocoa powder that softens all the pointy, jangly bits that threaten to poke your eye out, and you get an impression of being plunged into the warm embrace of fur – both animal and human.  The cocoa is not at all edible – fold away any expectations you might have of something gourmandy and sweet.  Rather, its powdery texture cleverly replicates the stale chocolate bitterness-dustiness that is a natural feature of real deer musk tinctures.  Shamama attars and shamama-based perfumes can often be animalic, even when they lean exclusively on plant-based materials (Ajmal’s 1001 Nights being a case in point), relying on the natural funkiness of the aromatics or woods or moss to create something that, in some quarters, might be termed a Parfum de Fourrure (a fur perfume).  Here, Ambre de Coco leans a little on oud and ambergris to boost that effect, but in spirit and intent, it joins the ranks of other glorious Indian shamama-inspired perfumes, such as 1001 Nights (Al Lail) by Ajmal and Jardin de Shalimar by Agarscents Bazaar.

 

Photo:  Charila, a type of Indian lichen that is similar to oakmoss. Photo by Pranjal Kapoor

 

The drydown is suitably bitter-musky-tobacco-ish in the way of these Indian shamamatul ambers, but I am not sure whether this is because of the additional dose of oakmoss and ambergris, or because of the naturally aromatic aspects of charila, an inky-smelling moss material from India that is oakmoss-adjacent and also the first material to be distilled in the shamama recipe.  Either way, my comment about MAAI wearing a fur coat stands.  This is a two-day affair and can be smelled on the skin even after a hot shower.  Considering that genuine shamama attars can take two months to distill and starts at a minimum of $2,000 a kilo for one that’s been distilled into real sandalwood oil, $360 for a 48ml bottle of perfume that not only does justice to shamama but elevates it to the small pantheon of shamama greats that exist on the market today, Ambre de Coco is both beautiful and superb value for money.          

 

 

 

Malik Al Motia

 

Photo by Bibi Pace on Unsplash

 

First, a bit of etymology. Motia (or alternatively mogra) is Urdu for Sambac jasmine, which itself is popularly known as ‘Arabian jasmine’, distinguishing it from Jasminum grandiflorum, the more classical jasmine grown in France and India.  You can buy motia in two forms – as an attar al motia, which involves jasmine petals distilled directly over a base of pure sandalwood, or as a ruh al motia, which is the pure essence of the flower, no sandalwood base.   Malik means, loosely, owner or King in Arabic, which I guess suggests that Malik al Motia is supposed to be the Supreme Boss of all Jasmines.  

 

But if you think that means you’re getting something loud, you would be wrong.  Russian Adam mentioned an interesting fact about traditional attars that I hadn’t known, which is that attar wallahs distilling in the old Indian manner produce essences that are pitched at a perfectly modulated mid-tone point, meaning that the final aroma is never too loud or too quiet.  And I find Malik Al Motia to be a perfect example of what he means.

 

This is jasmine with all the lights switched off.  It starts out as dusky, velvety, and slightly indolic in tone, similar to the darkened jasmine found in Ruh al Motia (Nemat) as well as to the soft, magic market indoles of Cèdre Sambac (Hermes).   But the leathery indoles are smoothed out by a judicious touch of the grandiflorum variety of jasmine, whose luscious sweetness and full-bodied charm sands down any rough edges on that Sambac.  Hints of overripe, boozy fruit – like an overblown banana liquor – lend a steamy tone but remain firmly in the background.  Oddly, Malik al Motia smells far more like jasmine than the Motia attar from the attar set that has presumably been used somewhere in the mix. 

 

There are resins and woods in the base, even some oud.  But these just act as the dimmer switch on the jasmine, making sure that everything, even the parts of jasmine that are naturally sunny, are subsumed into the folds of that black velvet olfactory curtain.  The rich, honeyed ‘just-licked skin’ tones of Sambac come through at the end and linger plaintively for hours.  Similar to the now discontinued Gelsomino triple extract by Santa Maria Novella, the natural end to any Sambac is that rich, skanky sourness of your wrist trapped under a leather watch-band all day under intense heat.

 

Yet Malik al Motia remains intensely floral.  Wearing feels like waking up in a field of jasmine at dusk, the air still redolent with scent.  It is not especially feminine and clearly not a soliflore.  The material’s rich indoles lend a slightly dirty feel, as does the mealy woods in the base (reading more cedar-ish than sandalwoody to my nose), but it manages to be darkly, sensually ‘adult’ without ever tipping over into full frontal territory.  Soft, black-purple velvet, a hushed ambience, your heels sinking into deep carpet.  Makes wish I still had someone to seduce.   

 

 

 

Al Majmua

 

Photo by Frank Albrecht on Unsplash

 

Al Majmua is based on the famous majmua attar, a traditional Indian blend of four other already-distilled attars and ruhs, namely, ruh khus (vetiver root), ruh kewra (pandanus, or pandan leaf), mitti attar (a distillation of hand-made clay bowls), and kadam attar (distilled from the small, yellow bushy flowers of the Anthocephalus cadamba).   Together, these attars combine to mimic the lush, earthy fragrance of India during the rainy season.  In Al Majmua, it is the green, foresty tones of the ruh khus that dominate, at least at first.  Its rugged, earthy aroma smells like the roots of a tree dipped into a classic men’s fougère, something green and bitter enough to put hairs on your chest.  In fact, there is a chalky galbanum-like note here that links Al Majmua, at least superficially, with the front half of Incenza Mysore.

 

But what I love about majmua attars, and hence also about Al Majmua, is that the juicy-sharp bitterness of the opening tends to soften into an earthy, dusty bitterness – nature’s slide, perhaps, from vetiver root to mitti.  

 

This earthy, aromatic aroma is complex and ever-shifting, sometimes letting the slightly minty yellow floral of the kadam attar peek through, sometimes the piercing, fruity-vanillic, yet funky aroma of pandanus leaf (kewra attar), which Russian Adam has cleverly accentuated by adding a cat-pissy blackcurrant up front.  But what really predominates is the earthy wholesomeness of soil and dust, emphasized with patchouli, and given a spicy, armpitty warmth by a sturdy cedarwood in the base that believes itself to be a musk of some sort.  Though the notes don’t include musk or even a naturally musky material like costus, there is an aspect to Al Majmua that smells like the creamed, stale skin at the base of a woman’s neck.  A perfumer friend of mine, Omer Pekji, recommended to me long ago to wear a swipe of Majmua attar under my Muscs Khoublai Khan (Serge Lutens), and I wonder if the reason this particular layering combination works so well is because muskiness forms the bridge between the two perfumes.

 

What I admire the most about Al Majmua is the way that the perfumer chose to simply frame the majmua attar at the center (since it is a complex-smelling thing in and of itself) and then arrange other, complementary materials around it to draw out and emphasize certain aspects of the attar’s character.  For example, a silvery-powdery iris is placed in just the right place to highlight the dustiness of mitti, the cedarwood to underline the majmua’s slight bodily funk, the patchouli to draw even longer 5 o’ clock shadows under the jaw of the ruh khus, and so on.   

 

Fresh over animalic.  Earthy but not pungent.  Imagine Green Irish Tweed sprayed over a deer musk attar that faded down a long time ago.  Indians love majmua attars for their complex, aromatic character and so do I, but I like Al Majmua the best when it is almost done.  Because, just as the slow, gentle fade-to-grey starts to happen, there is a magnificent moment where the natural sandalwood smells like – similar to some parts of Musk Lave and Jicky – idealized male skin.   Meaning, skin after a hot shave, application of an old-fashioned but honest sandalwood tonic (Geo F. Trumpers, say), and then an hour of gentle exertion in the cold air.

 

 

 

Mysore Incenza

 

 

Adjust your expectations.  You see, I know what you’re thinking.  You see the words ‘Mysore’ and ‘incense’ and, like Pavlov’s dog, you immediately salivate, expecting something warm, ambered, and resinous, like Sahara Noir or Amber Absolute mixed with the best, creamiest version of Bois des Iles or Bois Noir (Chanel) that ever existed, but somehow better, you know, because it is all artisanal and therefore deeper, richer, more authentic than anything you can buy on the shelves of your local department store or even niche perfumery.

 

Mysore Incenza is not that.  In fact, so large was the gap between my expectations and reality that I had to wear it five times in a row to come to terms with what it is rather than what I thought it was going to be.   In pairing the extremely high-pitched, dusty, lime-peel notes of frankincense with the extremely soft, ‘neutral’ woody tones of the vintage Mysore sandalwood (from 2000) included in the attar set (read my review here), a transubstantiation of sorts is performed, and something else entirely emerges.

 

Specifically, this new creature is born in the surprising mold of Chanel No. 19 or Heure Exquise (Annick Goutal), with one small toe dipped into the Grey Flannel genepool on the way.  At least at first.  It glitters in this high, pure register, an explosion of Grappa, lime peel, and wood alcohol chased by baby powder, a striking frankincense, and what smells to me like the dusky, cut-bell-pepper dryness of galbanum and the slightly shrill smell of violet leaf.  This creates a dry, clean, woody aroma that smells purified and ascetic.  This kind of frankincense, perhaps changed by the presence of the sandalwood, smells unlit – slightly waxy, slightly powdered, and definitely not smoky, although it occurs to me that the perception of smokiness is as personal and nuanced as your political beliefs.

 

There is no warmth, no sweetness, and no comfort at all.  Don’t look towards the sandalwood to provide any relief, either.  Mysore Incenza is cleansing, angular, and ‘holy’ in the same way as other famously austere scents in incense canon are, such as Incense Extreme (Tauer), Encens Flamboyant (Annick Goutal), and Ambra (Lorenzo Villoresi).  These are all fragrances that steer away from softening the jutting sharpness of frankincense with amber or vanilla or flowers, choosing instead to focus on the dry, musky-soapy, ‘hard core’ character of resin that radiates hard, like tiny particles of mica or dust leaping off the bible when the priest thumps it to make a point in the angriest of angry sermons.   Mysore Incenza keeps you kneeling straight, anxiously waiting for the priest to say that you can sit back down again.

 

Although technically beautiful, it is most definitely not my kind of thing.  My personal tastes run towards hedonism and gluttony rather than asceticism.  I put the hair shirt away a long time ago.  People who loved Grandenia will also love Mysore Incenza, as there is something of the same vibe.    

 

 

 

Le Mitti

 

Photo: The clay bowls of Indian earth loaded into the still to make mitti attar.  Photo by Pranjal Kapoor, with full permission to use.

 

As Russian Adam warns, Le Mitti is less of a perfume and more of a bottled emotion, so expect a maelstrom with a short but dramatic trajectory from start to finish.  Like Mitti from Oudologie (review here), Le Mitti is a departure from the mineralic, petrichor effect of very traditional mitti attars, in that it is smoky to the point of smelling charred.  I like this way of approaching mitti, as it feels more modern and exciting.  What is lost in all this delicious smoke, however, is that essential feeling of something wet (rain) hitting something dry (the parched red soil of India), which in effect activates the geosmin in the earth and makes that pure ‘after the rain’ effect ring out.  Try Après L’Ondée, if that’s what you’re looking for, or a traditional mitti attar.  But remember that Le Mitti is a perfume, not an attar, and is therefore more of an imaginative interpretation than a dogged replication.

 

So, what does Le Mitti smell like?  Like a perfect storm of peanut dust, tar, soot – charred remnants of a wood fire, soot snaking up the wall in black streaks.  It is Comme des Garcons Black without the anise or the clove.  I love it.  But it is definitely a hybrid mitti rather than a pureline one.  It joins the earthy red dust of Indian clay bowls to the dry, sooty scent of an Irish cottage without ventilation.  As you might imagine, it is hilariously atmospheric.  Don’t wear it unless you’re prepared for people to ask if you’ve been near an open fire recently.

 

 

 

Gul Hina

 

Photo by Photos by Lanty on Unsplash

 

Gul Hina, or Gul Heena, or sometimes even Attar Mehndi, meaning ‘flower of henna’, is an attar derived from distilling henna leaves (Lawsonia Inermis) directly into sandalwood oil.   As you might guess from the name, the attar comes from the same plant as the popular red dye that is used to paint elaborate patterns onto the hands and face of brides in most Indian weddings, be it a Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh ceremony.  There is also a Ruh Mehndi, but since it is very expensive at $43,000 per kilogram (while the attar ranges between $500 and $5,000 per kilogram), it is rarely used commercially.  Well, to be honest, neither the attar or ruh of henna is well known outside of India and is therefore under-utilized in Western niche or artisanal perfumery.   Strangelove NYC’s fallintostars is an exception – it uses a heena attar distilled by M.L. Ramnarain.  (Review here).  

 

Gul Hina by Areej Le Doré is an entirely different experience to most Gul Hina attars I have tried.  The scent of mehndi attar is that of earth, hay, flower petals, ink, baked clay, and iodine.  (The ruh smells greener, with a  tobacco-ish facet).  It can smell rather austere.  But the Areej Le Doré approach to Gul Hina is to bathe the henna flower in the prettiest of magnolia blossoms, rose, and jasmine, so that what emerges is a sort of Venus on a Half Shell – a pearlescent, creamy, and indubitably feminine experience.  This is not the hot baked earth and hay that I am used to in mehndi.  And I’m not complaining.

 

It strikes me that this would be perfect for a bride, especially one that is also getting those intricate henna patterns painted onto her hands and face.  Henna on the arms and face; Gul Hina on the wrists and neck.  A synchronicity of henna for good health and a happy marriage.

 

First, Gul Hina smells vaguely candied, but indirectly so, like floral gummies rolled in dust and lint.  Then you notice the magnolia petals floating in a pool of cream.  Unlike in other takes on magnolia, there is no lemony freshness and no juicy, metallic greenery at its heart.  Here, the petals feel impregnated with the cream in which it floats, like biscuits or croissants dipped into condensed milk before baking a bread pudding.  These sweet, milky notes mingling with the clearly floral elements of magnolia remind me of some aspects of Remember Me (Jovoy).

 

The jasmine is next to break free of this creamy mass.  Clear as a bell, this is a naturalistic jasmine, like jasmine petals dropping and wilting off a vine in high summer.  Petals fully open, a ripe smell, with something fecund and though not quite clean, not exactly indolic either.  Still, it is enough to give the pretty magnolia some much-needed kick.  A little funk in your cream.  The rose, when it emerges, is extremely subtle.  Rose rarely plays such a back seat, but here it plays nicely in floral tandem with jasmine and magnolia that it approaches that ‘mixed floral bouquet’ effect that Creed puts in all its older feminines, like Vanisia and Fleurissimo.      

 

To be honest, I am not sure what to think about the far drydown.  With the white musk and the sandalwood, there is a nice element of perfumey, musky bitterness that creeps in.  On the one hand, this sort of drydown is always very pretty (think Coco Mademoiselle, without the patchouli), but on the other, it doesn’t sit well with the magnolia cream pudding aspect, which in consequence begins to smell a little less like a milky dessert and more like that fake croissant scent they pump around the supermarket to get shoppers moving towards the baked goods section.

 

But even if it is ultimately not quite my thing, I can’t imagine why Gul Hina wouldn’t be a huge success with brides to be, women who like pretty florals, and fans of milky floral gourmands in general.  Overall, I admire Gul Hina for being a symbolic scent pairing to the more pungent smell of henna ink painted onto a woman’s body on her wedding day.  It doesn’t smell like any mehndi attar I have ever smelled before, but my experience with mehndi is limited and I fully expect someone who is fully familiar with it to smell this and say, but of course, this is pure mehndi!

 

 

Source of samples:  My samples were sent free of charge by the brand.  This does not affect my review.

 

Cover Image: Photo by Fahrul Azmi on Unsplash 

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Amber Ambergris Animalic Carnation Musk Resins Review

Fiore d’Ambra by Profumum Roma

22nd June 2022

 

 

What I find disturbing about Fiore d’Ambra by Profumum Roma is that it is sweet and filthy in equal measure, like Youth Dew sprayed on a dirty crotch.  Unlike Ambra Aurea, which is immediately pleasant, Fiore d’Ambra mouths off at you in three different languages at once and gives you little time to catch up.  Best I can make out, the smell boils down to a particularly clovey stick of clove rock, sugar cubes soaked in antibiotics, and underneath, a stirring of some very unclean musks.  The combination is suggestive of both the pleasures of the headshop (musk cubes, unlit incense, dust) and of the faintly sour-sweet breath of unwashed ladybits that must have risen like yeast every time Henry VIII lifted a lady’s gown.

 

I love it.  I thumb my nose at anyone suggesting it is an amber, though.  Names are powerful things, but smell this without thinking of the ‘amber’ in the title or the fact that it sits right next to a similarly-named fragrance (Ambra Aurea) in the Profumum Roma catalogue, and you begin to see that its feral poop-fur quality aligns it far more closely with scents like Muscs Khoublai Khan (Serge Lutens), L’Air de Rien (Miller Harris), and L’Ombre Fauve (Parfumerie Generale) than with stuff like Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens) or even Ambra Aurea.  

 

As an accord in perfumery, amber is both a comfort and a straitjacket.  On the one hand, the smoky-spicy sweetness of warm resins and vanilla never fails to hit, plugging into our dopamine receptors with the same ease as the smell of coffee first thing in the morning or something good in the oven when you’re hungry.   Amber cocoons you, satiating your basic appetite for warmth and richness.  It is the flannel pajamas of the scent world.

 

But there is not to distinguish between ambers – or if there is, it is a matter of minute variations to the left or the right of the same basic ambery accord.  Think of just how much really separates Ambra Aurea from an Amber Absolute (Tom Ford), say, or from an Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens), or a Mitzah (Dior Privée).   Past a certain point, you’re just playing with varying degrees of sweetness (vanilla), powderiness (benzoin), leather or caramel (labdanum), smoke (incense) and the accoutrements of spice or herbs.  The result always smells good.  But does it smell interesting or original?  Hardly ever.

 

Now, Fiore d’Ambra innovates.  It doesn’t even really smell like amber to me, unless you count any sweet element at all – here a soda stream-Coca Cola syrupiness – as ‘amber’.  The ‘opium’ element, which has traditionally been interpreted in perfumery by way of eugenol – a substance that is almost as verboten as opium itself these days – has probably been built with clove oil instead.  But the perfumers didn’t even bother to lather it up into a soft froth with geranium or rose, so the clove note juts out of the topnotes like a sudden erection.  The musks are sensual, but raw and unclean (a bit salty even), strangely reminiscent of the dry honey-toner-ink accord from M/Mink (Byredo).

 

The minute I smelled Fiore d’Ambra, I was reminded of the vials of Fleur Poudrée de Musc (Les Nereides) that the Conor McTeague (aka Jtd), my friend and the best fragrance writer in the world, sent to a group of perfume friends around the world in early 2015.  I think he got enormous fun out of the collective recoil.  It smelled like the most innocent of baby powders combined with the foulest of human shits, a merry middle finger to the frou-frou Botticelli angels and Ye Olde Italian Script of the brand itself.  Conor wrote this of Fleur Poudrée de Musc:  “Have you ever undressed somebody after a long day of winter sport, all those layers amplifying the scent of skin that’s sweated then dried multiple times? Remember that scent, then imagine some powder on top”.  I don’t know if Conor ever smelled Fiore d’Ambra, but I like to think he might have described it in much the same way.  

 

 

 

Source of sample: I purchased my 18ml travel bottle of Fiore d’Ambra from the Profumum Roma store in Rome, March 2022.  It cost €55.

 

Cover Image: Photo by Inge Poelman on Unsplash 

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Aquilaria Blossom by Areej le Doré X Agar Aura

26th May 2022

 

 

Aquilaria Blossom is an exciting new collaboration between Russian Adam of Areej le Doré and Taha Syed of Agar Aura, both oud artisan distillers and perfumers of repute in the oud and mukhallat community.  Russian Adam is something of a pioneer for the oud community in that Areej Le Doré was the first brand to make a commercially successful breakthrough from pure oud distillation into the bigger market of niche spray perfumes.  In doing so, he opened new doors for the rest of the oud artisan community.

 

And now it seems that Russian Adam is once again forging new market pathways both for his own brand and others, this time with a marketing strategy known as collaboration, a partnership-based strategy that expands the commercial reach of both partners, cements reputations, and deepens the customers’ feeling of engagement and authenticity associated with the brand.  Areej le Doré’s first collab was with Sultan Pasha Attars on Civet de Nuit (review here). 

 

For us consumers, the important thing is to understand what we are getting in terms of value added.  How are the two styles of the two collab partners different, or similar?  Why does a collab between them make sense, both for them as artisans and for us as the people who end up buying and wearing this perfume?  For readers who are perhaps unfamiliar with the respective styles and signature ‘moves’ of Taha Syed and Russian Adam, let’s take a closer look at them individually before examining the end result of their collaboration, i.e., Aquilaria Blossom.   

 

Taha Syed of Agar Aura is a famous artisan oud distiller, with a reputation roughly at the same level of Ensar Oud (they are fierce competitors).  Though unfamiliar with his mixed media work, I have tested and reviewed two of his pure oud oils for my oud series here and here (I purchased both samples directly from Taha).  The common thread I found in both ouds was that his style is deceptively clean and minimalist, eventually revealing very complex substrata.

 

But Taha is also famous for his support for the idea of using fractionated compounds of oud oil to ‘build’ a more complete or compelling aroma.  In oud distillation, as in any essential oil distillation, the quality of the aroma of the compounds in the distillate varies according to many different factors (read here for more detail), one of which is the timeline at which the distillate is ‘pulled’ out from the still. 

 

For example, in ylang, the distillate produced in the first hour of distillation is known as Extra, with the grades of First, Second, and Third following in sequential order.  The descending order is generally thought to correspond to a descending quality, though lack of standardization in the essential oil distillation business makes this extremely difficult to verify and is often purely conjecture.  I am not sure that fractioning is that precise or quantifiable a tool.  But what it does allow for is a bit more room to play for the artisan who is distilling the oil.  

 

The upshot is that at each stage (or ‘pull’) of the oud distillation process, the distillate possesses some characteristics that customers find desirable and some that are less so.  The artisan’s job is to figure out how to amplify the desirable traits and weed out the less desirable ones.  What Taha Syed is known for doing is separating out the oud distillate into individual compounds and then putting them back together in a way that fits with the idea he holds in his head.  If the customers love the smoke and leather notes of a particular style of oud oil, but not the more sour, abrasive ones, Taha can separate them out and discard what he doesn’t need.  A retrofitting of sorts[1].  Apparently, this is now a quite common approach in the pure oud distilling world. 

 

Russian Adam, on the other hand, is probably best known for the Areej le Doré perfumes, many of which I have reviewed here on this blog.  His perfume compositions tend to be baroque, retro-styled florientals that lean hard on rare raw materials (oud oil, real deer musk, genuine ambergris) but stop short of making them the entire point of the exercise.  The result is often as pungent as its constituent raw materials, but you would never mistake it for a simple distillate; these are clearly perfumes.

 

Interestingly, his pure oud distillation work under the Feel Oud banner tends to be far more experimental.  Read through my pure oud oil reviews (grouped and alphabetized here: 0-C, D-K, L-O, and P-Y) to see reviews of Russian Adam’s pure oud oils and you’ll see what I mean.  From runny Brie to green curry oil and jasmine, his oud oils are perhaps the quirkiest and most playful I’ve seen in what can be a very po-faced genre.   

 

So, without further waffling on, how does Aquilaria Blossom – as a collab between two oud artisans who also happen to be self-taught perfumers – fare both as a fragrance and as a representation of two quite different artistic styles?

 

Let me start by saying that Aquilaria Blossom surprised me by its lightness and its simplicity.  Now, never were two words more guaranteed to make the Basenotes boys sweat than these, so let me clarify.  When I say ‘light’, I mean that texturally, it wears as thinly and elegantly on the skin as an Hermès silk scarf (compared to, say, an Aran sweater).  This isn’t the bulky ‘stacked to the rafters’ scent experience we are used to from Areej le Doré.  It wears on the skin in the same way as Dehn Oud Ateeq (Abdul Samad Al Qurashi) does, which is to say a sheer but durable wash of scent on the skin.

 

And when I say ‘simplicity’, I mean that this isn’t a perfume that crowds in so many notes and accords that all you smell is a thick mud of absolutes.  It remains legible, uncluttered  – no squinting required to make out what it is that you’re smelling.

 

Don’t know about you guys, but those are both positives in my book.  It certainly makes the scent easier to describe.

 

The TL;DR:  Aquilaria Blossom is a fresh, spicy scent that pairs a juicy floral-tart citrus accord with a fine-grained, horsey leather (most likely the result of that ‘touch of oud’ promised in the notes list), bracketed by an ambrein-rich resinousness that seems to build from nowhere about six hours in.   

 

The feature-length movie version: A one-two punch of a tarry citrus and a pop of (briefly) gamey oud opens the scent with a dramatic flourish, holding court in that vein for quite some time.  The citrus accord, pithy with bergamot and aromatic-woody with yuzu, is bitter but also balmy, with a waxy perfumeyness that brings to mind orange blossom.  If you’ve ever had those strange Japanese gummies that taste both citrusy and floral in the mouth (think Diptyque’s Oyedo), then you have an idea of what this smells like.  For the record, this is the only even vaguely floral part of the scent, for me at least.  

 

A note on the oud (or ouds) used.  They are not specified and maybe not even the point.  But I do wonder if Taha Sayed use compounds of different ouds at various points of the perfume’s composition to highlight an effect he wanted and discard the rest.   For example, the briefly animalic pop of oud at the start might be a fractionated compound of a Hindi oil, because we get the spicy hay and leather notes of a Hindi but none of its depth or range.   And while the faint undercurrent of sour berries and stale radiator dust that soon develops under the skin of this opening might point to a Cambodi, who really knows, because there sure ain’t any caramel. 

 

Whatever it is, the main effect of oud is to start building a lightly gamey leather accord that stretches all the way from the top of the scent to its basenotes.  The citrus notes eventually fall off, as they do, but when they do, you don’t lose any of the freshness initially created by them, largely because the leather that the oud whips up is so elegantly thin.

 

Ambergris sometimes adds this wonderfully silty, horsehair muskiness to a composition.  Combined with the oud in Aquilaria Blossom, I find this produces the impression of being in a tack room, the air thick with the scent of saddles freshly taken off heated horseflesh.  A touch of castoreum (beaver butt) adds to the soupy animal warmth.  Yet, the doors of this putative tack room have been flung open to let the fresh smells of flowers and hay in from the fields.  And maybe someone peeled an orange an hour ago, its volatile skin oils still staining the air.   

 

‘Aquilaria Blossom’ is so-named for what both Taha Syed and Russian Adam imagined what a flower growing out of an Aquilaria tree might smell like.  But despite the listed magnolia and neroli, the only floral touches I perceive are brief and upfront, worked into the perfumey bittersweetness of the citrus notes in the opening.  Thankfully, the neroli doesn’t go soapy on me, or perhaps it does and all I end smelling is saddle soap, which is the only way I take my soap in perfumery anyway.

 

The ending really does come as a bit of a surprise.  It shows up right when everything else is winding down, but unlike that one drunk guy who shows up at 3 am, it is most welcome.  One by one, all the other notes seem to get siphoned off into a golden cloud of glittery resin particles, anchored by a rubbery licorice myrrh, and thickened only slightly by a subtle (thin) vanilla.  The ending, like the rest of the scent, feels deliciously sheer.  This is a scent where all the molecules are spread out and have ample room to breathe. 

 

In the end, how much of Taha and how much of Russian Adam actually got into Aquilaria Blossom?  I think the light, minimalistic structure is more Taha than Adam, but then I haven’t smelled any of Russian Adam’s fresher, more citrus-forward perfumes, like Chinese Oud (though his Limau Hijau under the Feel Oud banner is very citrus-forward) and I only know Taha’s work through his pure oud oils.  All I can say with confidence is that Aquilaria Blossom has none of that heady, musky floriental thickness of body that we are used to in Areej Le Doré releases.

 

Is it possible that two oud greats came together and created….a freshie?  Maybe!  Russian Adam is an innovator and this is possibly him shaking things up.  Aquilaria Blossom is fragrant and aromatic, woody and bright.  It lingers on the skin and in the air but feels like no weight at all on the skin.  But that’s not to say that its simplicity is, well, simple.  I’m reminded of the line in Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” where he says “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then, I contradict myself. / I am large, I contain multitudes”.  Aquilaria Blossom is relatively simple and straightforward.  But it too contains multitudes.  Multitudes of hay, ambergris, spice, citrus peel, and wood rot all tucked away neatly into one long thin line of leather.

 

 

Source of sample:  A 2ml sample sent to me free of charge by Russian Adam (I paid customs).   

 

Cover Image:  Photo, my own, of Aquilaria Blossom sample next to piece of Wild Thai agarwood for scale.  Please do not distribute, circulate or use this photo without my permission.

 

 

[1] For example, on the Agar Aura website, Taha describes his technique for Berkilau Hitam, a discontinued oil, as follows: ‘Berkilau Hitam is the pure isolated base-note fractions of the agarwood extract (and approximately 6 times higher in quality: Berkilau raw materials). This is pure wood, resin, and smoke. These are the same aromatic fractions that most people associate with actual burning agarwood, Fractions which are either missing altogether in many oud oils, or extracted using inferior distillation techniques. Scientifically speaking, this oil literally consists of only the heaviest, densest, richest aromatic compounds found in agarwood (read: darkest smelling)[1].’ Interesting, no?

 

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Hera by Papillon Artisan Perfumes

22nd May 2022

 

 

Two fragrances do not an evolution make, I’m aware.  But I can’t help feeling that Spell 125 and now Hera mark a departure for perfumer Liz Moores, away from perfumes that either reference classical styles (Dryad – a green chypre in the fashion of Vol de Nuit, Bengale Rouge – a spicier, more balsamic take on Shalimar or Emeraude) or espouse a particular trope like leathery incense (Anubis) or rose (Tobacco Rose).  Rather, Her and Spell 125 seem to be a bold move towards abstraction, wherein the perfumes are much more than a good smell – they are an expression of an idea.

 

Take the complete lack of literalism in Hera, for example.  You look at the notes and the description, and you think, ah, ok, a wedding bouquet perfume.  Lush, creamy white and yellow florals spilling over a whale-boned corset of puffy marshmallow musk.  Romantic, serene and beautiful in that conventionally feminine manner expected of brides.  But you don’t actually get any of that from Hera.

 

The first surprise is an atomic cloud of spicy violet-iris powder, a diffusive ballooning of molecules powered by what feels to me like aldehydes but is actually ambrette, a natural musk derived from the musk mallow plant.  The apple peel and grappa facets of the ambrette sharpen the violet sensation of the opening and feathers the whole thing into an ethereal mist.  But in no way does this smell pretty or candied or like face powder.  No dainty bridal pastilles here, no Siree.

 

There is also – immediately – the tarry benzene edge of Extra or First Ylang, announcing the first of the floral absolutes that don’t really smell like their usual floral representations in perfumery.  Ylang is always painted as banana-ish or custard-like, but in truth, the natural stuff (essential oil) often has this surprisingly creosote-like smokiness that most often gets smothered by perfumers with sandalwood or vanilla, in the hope of squishing it into a more banana custard shape.  Here, the ylang is uncut and unsweet.  And it definitely doesn’t smell like banana custard. 

 

The surprisingly true ylang in Hera is soon joined by a spicy Sambac jasmine – again, not the creamy, sweet white jasmine of conventional perfumery, but more the authentically leathery-sour twang of Sambac absolute.  The florals do not smell lush, sweet or traditionally feminine.  In fact, Hera does not even smell particularly floral.

 

The central surprise of Hera – its abstraction – is the way in which this tug of war between potent floral absolutes takes place inside this smoky cloud of iris-mimosa-violet powder, stacked one on top of another like a matryoshka doll.  It is an incredible feat of construction that turns florals as heavy as jasmine, orange blossom, and ylang into a fizzy, violet-colored ether.

 

With time, another layer of the matryoshka reveals itself as a murky accord that smells like tobacco but is probably ambergris.  This lends the perfume an aura of salty, powdered skin, like the glow on healthy young skin after mild exertion.  Momentarily, the interaction between the purplish dry-ice florals and damp, tobacco-ish ambergris produces an impression of Caron’s Aimez-Moi (which itself smells like a pouch of moist, tobacco leaves dotted with anise and dried violets).  But this impression is fleeting.

 

Hera feels spicy but remains utterly air-filled and diffuse, as if someone has tried and failed to plug cinnamon sticks and clove buds into an ever shifting dust cloud of wood molecules.  There is also something like myrrh, with its dusty, minty-latexy bitterness.  But Hera never gets bogged down in the thick, sweet thickness of resins, thus neatly sidestepping any effort to pigeonhole it as an incense.  Yet, the spices and the myrrh do give Hera a hint of what I imagine medieval candy might have smelled like, a sort of salty-herbal-fizzing concoction that, when ingested, banishes all evil.    

 

The perfume seems to deepen, but the overall sense of its construction – a complex whirligig of chewy florals and tobacco inside a bright, acidic haze of floral high C notes – remains consistent.  I picture Hera almost synesthesically, a violet-greige cloud of molecules that spark off each other like electricity.

 

It is an abstract experience, similar to the hard-to-define Spell 125 or even Seyrig (Bruno Fazzolari), but that’s not to say that Hera doesn’t also meet the original brief, which was to honor Liz Moores’ daughter, Jasmine, on her wedding day.  Indeed, Hera feels fizzy and bright and sensuous.  It smells optimistic.  

 

What Hera absolutely is not is a re-tread all the tired tropes of traditional bridal perfumery, so if you’re expecting something conventionally feminine or sweet, then park your expectations at the door.  Hera feels made for a lifetime of marriage – interesting, complex, wistful, packed with all the bittersweet moments of a relationships that morphs over time – rather than for one single shiny, glittery, picture-perfect day.  And in my opinion, it is all the better for it.  

 

Source of sample:  Sent free of charge to me by Liz Moores, with no expectation of a review, let alone a positive one. 

 

Cover image:  Photo by Łukasz Łada on Unsplash  

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Civet de Nuit by Areej Le Doré X Sultan Pasha 

28th April 2022

 

 

When reviewing a collaboration between two well-known figures in the indie-artisan scene, especially two friends with ten years of cross-pollination of ideas between them, the question becomes whether to review the fragrance for the small band of fans of people already intimately familiar with the styles of both Russian Adam and Sultan Pasha respectively, or for the broader group of people who just want to know what the perfume smells like.  Because I think the hardcore indie fans of both brands are well catered to by Basenotes threads here and here, I write this review for anyone who wandered in off the Google high street.  

 

Civet de Nuit is a retro-style floral musk featuring antique civet and a powdery oakmoss and amber drydown.  It is something of a Picasso, cycling through different color periods.  The opening is its Blue Period, a plush, anisic eddy of old-school florals inside the wistful heliotrope-and-violet powder room of L’Heure Bleue (Guerlain), albeit one reimagined through the lens of a dense indie musk – all licked skin, honeyed, damp cocoa powder.

 

In its heart, Civet de Nuit slides into a Yellow Period, dominated by an animalic acacia honey, sandalwood, and ylang combination.  Fans of Montaigne (Caron) will especially like this part.  The ylang in Civet de Nuit does not particularly of banana itself or of banana custard, but more like the animalic, fuel-like gassiness of a banana stem degrading in a brown paper bag.  It is simultaneously sharp and doughy.

 

In its very last stretches, Civet de Nuit enters its Brown Period, where the florals desiccate to a musty, leathery oakmoss (withered brown dust) that recalls the far drydown of both Bal à Versailles (Jean Desprez) and Miss Balmain (Balmain), an indeterminate ‘brown’ woodiness, glimpses here and there of amber resin, and a stale, saliva-ish accord that might be tobacco (but is rather similar to the brackish honey note present in Onda by Vero Profumo).   

 

The civet in Civet de Nuit is actually very subtle, reading more like a powdery deer musk than the jutting floral sharpness of civet paste.  It is likely that, being vintage civet, it has mellowed over time and lost all its urinousness.  Civet de Nuit is a complex fragrance that cycles through multiple stages on the skin, with the last occurring a full 24 hours after the first spray.

 

Honestly, though I think Civet de Nuit smells amazing, I find it hard to categorize because it seems never to smell the same on me twice.  I’m sure that after this review is published, I’ll wear it again and kick myself for missing something really important.  On my first test, I felt sure I had this pegged as a doughy floral honey scent, with the same burnt, yeasty cocoa effect as Sultan Pasha’s own Mielfleurs.   It smelled to me like all parts of honey production – propolis, pollen, chestnut honey, the bee’s arse, the wildflowers in the meadow, the wooden frame.  A hint of Slowdive (Hiram Green), perhaps?  Yet – and this is the head scratcher – there is no honey listed anywhere.  

 

On my first wearing, I also noticed something of the ‘corn masa’ nuance of Seville à L’Aube (L’Artisan Parfumeur) and the floral cream-of-wheat effect of Dries Van Noten (Frederic Malle), Feromone Donna (Abdes Salaam Attar), and Pheromone 4 (Agarscents Bazaar), produced by a combination of a white floral like orange blossom or jasmine with ambergris or sandalwood.  I love this malty, wheaten effect.  It smells granular and salty, like a knob of Irish butter set to melt in a bowl of hot porridge.    

 

On my second test, the powder came out to play in a way it hadn’t previously.  In particular, a thick Nag Champa indie-style musk.  I’d made sure to wear Mielfleurs (Sultan Pasha Attars) on one hand and Civet de Nuit on the other, to see if the floral honey comparison was right.  But while they certainly land in a similar place (crusty artisanal honey, left to stale pleasantly on the skin), the Mielfleurs attar was immediately smoky, thick, and chocolatey, while Civet de Nuit was a diffuse haze of floral powders and stick incense lifting off the skin.  I think I am only able to smell the sparkling lift effect of Civet de Nuit’s aldehydes when placed next to something with no aldehydes at all.  On this test, I thought Civet de Nuit felt particularly gauzy and gentle.

 

On my third test, I wore Civet de Nuit on one hand and vintage Bal à Versailles parfum on the other.  Though they are both retro civety florals, they are completely different fragrances for 80% of the ride.  Whereas Civet de Nuit had felt aldehyded and powdery on previous tests, side by side with Bal à Versailles, it becomes clear that its aldehydes are a mere spritz compared to the fierce Coca Cola-like effervescence of the Jean Desprez perfume.  While both perfumes feature civet as a headlining note, Civet de Nuit cloaks it in a velvety glaze of dark cocoa and a caramel amber sheen, weighing it down in that thick artisanal musk, and setting the temperature dial to an Evening in Paris.  By comparison, Bal à Versailles, despite the 30 years it has on Civet de Nuit, smells like that Fragonard painting of the girl on the swing with her slipper flying off – a sherbety fizz of bright florals, civet, and soap.  Interestingly, however, in the far drydown, Civet de Nuit and Bal à Versailles do seem to converge.  There is a slightly astringent, leathery ‘Miss Balmain’-esque oakmoss element to both, although at times it also smells like a dusty, rubbery myrrh.     

 

Only on my third wearing was I able to identify Civet de Nuit as having a clearly ylang character.  Ylang can be difficult to control in a fragrance because of its assertively fruity-sour nature and gassy, benzene-like properties.  One drop too many and you get something too mature, too 1980s.  Ylang can age a scent backwards like no other.  Here, it is slightly banana-ish (again, more gaseous decaying banana stem than banana custard) but quite a lot of its bitter, leathery nuances have also been left in.  Not a tropical take, therefore, but more along the lines of how Thierry Wasser used ylang in his Mitsouko reformulation of 2017-2018, lending a discreet cuir de Russie accent.  Nonetheless, the ylang does give Civet de Nuit that slightly bitter, perfumeyness that constitutes its retro floral character.  

 

Russian Adam and Sultan Pasha both have identifiable signatures that run through their work – powdery, pungent floral musks in Russian Adam’s case and funky honey-tobacco accords in Sultan Pasha’s – and both signatures are present in Civet de Nuit.  But I hadn’t realized until I tested Civet de Nuit just how similar their styles actually are.  Civet de Nuit fits seamlessly into the Sultan Pasha Attar stable beside Sohan d’Iris and Mielfleurs, both of which lean on an animalic floral honey for their pulse.  But it fits just as seamlessly into Areej Le Doré canon, right beside the musky, Nag Champa floral stylings of Koh-I-Noor and the delicious, powdery funk of War and Peace.

 

On balance, though, Civet de Nuit is far lighter and less bombastically-styled than any of these forbears on either side of the aisle. Elegant and almost soft, I highly recommend it to anyone who not only loves retro florals but the furred weight of the real musks, sandalwood, and oakmoss used in the artisanal indie perfumer scene these days.   

 

 

Source of Sample: A 10ml bottle of Civet de Nuit was sent to me free of charge by the brand for review (I paid customs). This did not affect my review.

 

Cover Image: Photo my own.  Please do not use or replicate without my permission.

 

 

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The Attar Guide: Ambergris Reviews G-Y

4th March 2022

 

Ghaliyah Kacheri (Rising Phoenix Perfumery)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

An ambergris-forward version of the Ghaliyah series produced by Rising Phoenix Perfumery. Ghaliyah Kacheri adds a Hindi oud oil to the blueprint, but surprisingly, the Hindi keeps its big mouth shut until the far reaches of the drydown. What is most noticeable at first is the creamy, apple-peel freshness of champaca flower mixed with a silky, wheaten sandalwood-ambergris foundation. There is a golden tone to it, like flowers drenched in the saltwater glitter of ambergris.

 

The sour smoke of the Hindi oud breaks through after an hour, fusing with the salty, creamy florals to give the scent the patina of aged woods, leather, and campfire smoke. The contrast between the fermented funk of the Hindi and the rosy, shampoo brightness of the champaca is the key to its charm. Ghaliyah Kacheri is a clever and unusual floral ambergris with a great payoff. Sillage-wise, however, be aware this version is quite muted compared to the other Ghaliyah mukhallats in the series.

 

 

 

Molook (Amouage)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Molook is a paean to the glories of two of the stinkiest raw materials in all of perfumery, namely, ambergris and the most animalic of Hindi oud oils – the kind revered in the Emirati market. The Hindi is up front in all its creamy, sheep-cheesy glory. But it is the ambergris that really shines in this mukhallat. Redolent with the fetid marine stink of the softer, darker types of ambergris, the note still bears some resemblance to its original whale dung sheathing. Its fecal warmth acts as a magnifying glass for the oud, heating it up until a three-dimensional picture of animal fur has been rendered.

 

I suspect that many Western noses might be initially put off by the hot, sour blue cheese aroma that swells up on the skin the minute you dab it on. But that is just Hindi oud for you. Its heavy breath of fermentation and tanned leather is what most people in the Arabian Peninsula identify as the real smell of oud.

 

Although I personally prefer the smell of what is marketed these days as Cambodi oud – fruitier, sweeter, and less animalic – there is no denying that something about Hindi oud keeps my nose returning to my wrist. Its odd sourness is deeply compelling, and more mysterious and interesting overall than Cambodi oud. The aroma of the Hindi oud settles eventually, becoming rounder and warmer (although not sweeter) as the ambergris takes over, softening the blunt twang of the oud with its salty, musky glow.

 

Insofar as any mukhallat can be said to lean towards one gender or another, Molook leans masculine. It is fascinating to wear, especially for those interested in getting a picture of what a high quality Hindi oud or natural ambergris smells like.

 

 

Photo by roberta errani on Unsplash

 

Pure Amber (Amouage)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Like so many mukhallats with the word ‘amber’ in their title, this is not amber at all but rather, ambergris.  To anyone unfamiliar with ambergris – or indeed to anyone actually expecting amber – the opening could prove to be quite a shock. It is as earthy and stale as a clod of soil freshly dug up beside a marina where the carcasses of several marine mammals have begun to slowly rot. There is a distinct dung-like facet to the aroma but let me reassure you that the damp soil effect ensures the scent remains fresh-dirty rather than fecal-dirty.

 

Many ambergris oils or blends have a natural line of intersection with civet. But Amber makes it clear that this is a different animal altogether. Ambergris is a little stinky in that slightly rude, open-hearted way of farmland and the seaside, but not at all sharp, like civet can be. Pure Amber showcases the earthy, fungal undertones of ambergris, with a sideswipe of fresh horse dung for good measure. It warms up into the pleasant scent of freshly-mucked-out stable, complete with nuances of clean earth and warm straw. Equestrians and horse enthusiasts will understand that this is the scent of beauty itself.

 

Later, other nuances drift into the picture, principally an arid, aromatic sandalwood, and the vanillic smell of old books. It is at this stage that one realizes that Pure Amber is really a simple blend of two exquisite materials – white ambergris and sandalwood. The drydown is a careful balance between the nutty warmth of sandalwood and the mineralic radiance of ambergris. Those obsessed with the evocative scent of antique bookstores and long, windswept Atlantic beaches may want to lay their souls on the line for a sample.

 

 

 

Royal Amber Blend (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Royal Amber Blend is a lower-priced reiteration of the Royal Amber AA Blend, below, and therefore a more streamlined version of the same basic scent profile. Like its progenitor, it features a medicinal, iodine-tinged amber note over a funky grade of ambergris. However, Royal Amber Blend lacks the sweet, taffy-like depth of the labdanum in the original. Instead, it is unsweet, greenish, and moldy in the vein of sepulchral ambers like Ambra Nera (Farmacia SS. Annunziata), occupying a sourish register that will be unfamiliar to those used to the vanillic ambers of mainstream perfumery. With its muscular, briny-herbaceous undertones, Royal Amber Blend actually smells far more Indian than Middle Eastern in style.

 

 

 

Photo by Maskmedicare Shop on Unsplash

 

Royal Amber AA Blend (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

A very complex and interesting mukhallat. As with most mukhallats, it doesn’t have the traditional top-down structure that we are used to with Western alcohol-based spray perfumes. Instead, when it is first dabbed onto the skin, the notes appear as a thick blanket of scent before spreading out in concentric waves to reveal the basic facets of the scent. Body heat intensifies and warms the notes so that they become ever more radiant. 

 

Royal Amber is primarily all about the ambergris. The ambergris note is unabashedly inky and medicinal at first, denoting the helping hand of saffron, a material with iodine-like properties. This combination pulls the scent down a hospital corridor towards the operating theatre in much the same way that White Oud (Montale) does.

 

While the iodine note never disappears entirely, it is soon joined by the more attractive facets of natural ambergris, namely newspaper and sweet marine air. After a protracted period of salty sea air, the central accord takes on a far thicker and tarrier nuance, indicating the use of soft, dung-like black ambergris or, at the very least, a dark grey-brown specimen. The tarry facet is further accentuated by an unlisted labdanum resin. In its combination of sweet, sticky resins and animalic, leathery notes, Royal Amber shares common ground with the earlier Slumberhouse releases, such as Vikt and Sova.

 

Hearty, a bit rough around the edges, and with a one-two punch of ambergris and labdanum, Royal is simple but incredibly satisfying. It strikes me as the perfect scent for someone who spends a lot of time outdoors on beaches or in forests, preferring the scent of sticky tree sap and sea salt on their skin to the smell of perfume.

 

 

 

Photo by Kier In Sight on Unsplash

 

Royal Amber Spirit AAA (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

It is educational to apply Royal Amber Spirit AAA side by side with ASAQ’s slightly lower-priced amber blend, Amber Jewels. There is a price difference of approximately $100, but the step up in quality and complexity is greater than the price differential suggests. While Amber Jewels is a straightforward portrait of ambergris, Royal Amber Spirit AAA dresses the ambergris up in exotic jewels and finery.

 

Amber Jewels is light in texture and body, with a slightly raw, marine quality that persists for most of the fragrance, before fading into the caramelized tones of labdanum amber in the base. It smells fresh – ozonic almost – as if filtered through a herb-laden breeze carried straight from the ocean.

 

Royal Amber Spirit, on the other hand, is immediately heavier and more sweetly ambery. Although the raw marine quality of ambergris is present and correct upon application, it quickly becomes fused with a luxuriant, balsamic amber that feels pashmina-thick. Compared to Amber Jewels, it is infinitely more textured and three-dimensional. It maintains a salty-n-sweet ambergris tenor almost all the way through, though it is pleasurably muffled by a waxy layer of amber in the final stretch. A judicious dose of dusty spice – saffron, cinnamon, and clove perhaps – swims around in the treacle-like murk of the amber, adding a pleasant heat. What emerges is a warm, dusty leather with rich, balsamic touches.

 

There is also, I believe, a touch of sweet myrrh – opoponax – in the mix, present in the form of a bubbling, golden resin that encompasses both the waxy, honeyed texture of almond butter and the verdant bite of lavender. The opoponax adds a herbaceous dimension that freshens the breath of the scent’s resinous backdrop. The scent finishes in a blaze of ambery-woody warmth that, though now lacking the salty radiance of ambergris, still feels multi-dimensional in scope.

 

I recommend Royal Amber Spirit AAA to serious ambergris fans with a discerning palate and the means with which to pay for it. Be warned that it is tremendously expensive at $469 per tola, give or take. Is it worth the price of admission? In my opinion, yes.

 

 

Royal Ambergris (Arabian Oud)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Coming as close to the aroma of an ambergris tincture as one can get in oil format, Royal Ambergris is a superb ambergris attar. It shares similarities with both Sweet Blue Amber by Abdul Samad Al Qurashi and Amouage’s Amber attar but is drier than the former, and more natural in feel than the latter.

 

At first, it smells of clean marine silt and low tide, but then smooths out into the enticing aroma of warm hay, clean horse stables, fresh sea air, and the great outdoors. Later, a tiny bit of golden sweetness creeps in. In general, this is an ambergris that tilts more towards earth and tobacco than resin. Highly recommended both for layering and wearing alone.

 

 

 

Sandal Ambergris (Aloes of Ish)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

As advertised, ambergris and sandalwood. The ambergris opening is earthy to the point of smelling like freshly-cut mushrooms caked in black soil. The fungal dampness feels clean and saline rather than sweet.

 

After a transition that smells of wet and then dry newspapers, the emphasis shifts to the sandalwood in the base. At this price level ($20 or so per quarter tola), it is improbable that this is pure Indian sandalwood. But even if the natural oils are fluffed out a little by synthetic sandalwood, the overall effect smells so natural that it is difficult to find fault. The sandalwood accord is buttery, salty, papery, dry, and aromatic. It is also durable, lasting for the better part of an entire day.

 

It is interesting to compare something like Sandal Ambergris with the Santal Ambergris tincture by Abdes Salaam Attar (La Via del Profumo). Both address the same theme and focus on the same two materials, and though one is all natural and the other not, they are both very pleasing takes. As always, however, you get what you pay for. The quality in the La Via del Profumo version is clearly superior, while the Aloes of Ish oil involves a little bit of willful fantasizing on the part of the wearer.

 

 

Saqr II  (Al Shareef Oudh)

Type: mukhallat

                                                                  

 

Saqr II is a mukhallat composed in honor of nature in all its brutal beauty. It focuses on ambergris (long golden beaches), oud (forests), Ta’ifi rose (flowers in inhospitable terrain), and Himalayan musk (animal fur). Saqr II provides the wearer with a truly kaleidoscopic experience – the florals, exotic woods, and musk all rushing out at you in a giddy vortex of scent – but maintains a rigorous clarity rarely experienced in such complex blends. The wearer can smell every component of the blend, both individually and as part of the rich, multi-layered fabric of the perfume.

 

The play of light on dark is well executed. The tart green spice of the Ta’ifi rose lifts the perfume, while salty-sweet ambergris lends a sparkle. These brighter elements prevent the darker oud and musk from becoming too heavy. The bright rose burns away, leaving a trail of leathery, spicy oud wood that is addictive, drawing one’s nose repeatedly to the skin. The oud here is smooth and supple, with nary a trace of sourness or animal stink. The musk, perceptible more as a texture than a scent, blurs the edges of the oud and rose notes into furred roundness that gradually softens the scent’s austerity.

 

The slight out-of-focus feel to this blend makes it far more approachable for beginners than many others in the Al Shareef Oudh stable. There is even a little tobacco-ish sweetness thanks to the ambergris. However, typical for the house, none of the materials have been dumbed down for a Western audience. The blend smells classic in a certain rose-oud way, but it is not clichéd. Its balance of dark and bright elements, sweet and non-sweet, dirty-musky and clean, is what makes it such a masterful example of its genre.

 

Saqr II is complex, beautiful, and above all, easy to wear. I love the fuzzy golden timbre of the ambergris in this scent, which lends it a tannic apricot skin edge. It is my personal favorite of all the Al Shareef Oudh mukhallats and the one I would recommend to beginners as a great primer on the brand’s overall approach and aesthetic. Beyond that, it is one of the most beautiful perfumes I have had the pleasure of smelling in my life.

 

 

 

 

Sweet Blue Amber (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Sweet Blue Amber is essentially a hunk of brownish-grey ambergris left to macerate in carrier oil until maximum halitosis has been achieved. The first time I tried it, I was repelled. The opening howl of civet struck me as foul, and the body of the scent thin and wafty. It smelled uncomfortably like someone with very poor dental hygiene breathing on me in a packed space. 

 

But now, with several years of ambergris experience under my belt, I can say that Sweet Blue Amber is just a very faithful rendition of grey or brown ambergris. This grade of ambergris is admittedly funky, but it eventually mellows out into a salty, skin-like scent that is very sensual in an organic way.

 

I like to layer Sweet Blue Amber under certain Western scents like Shalimar or Mitsouko to add a bodily funk missing from the modern versions. Jacques Guerlain once said that all his perfumes contained something of his mistress’ undercarriage in them, but even he would have scandalized at what Shalimar smells like with a layer of Sweet Amber Blue lurking beneath. Shalimar doctored in this way smells utterly carnal, the ferocious civety skank of the Sweet Blue Amber glowing hotly through the smoky vanilla of Shalimar, like tires on fire at a bacchanal.

 

A bottle of Sweet Blue Amber could be a brilliant DIY solution to fixing perfumes in your collection that have lost their animalic spark through reformulation, age, or the banning of nitro musks. Imagine the current versions of Bal a Versailles and No. 5 restored to their former animalic glory. The possibilities seem endless. Buy a tiny bottle of Sweet Amber Blue and have fun with it!

 

 

Photo by Andrea Cairone on Unsplash

 

Truffe Blanche (Sultan Pasha Attars)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Truffe Blanche is so-named because it contains white Alba truffle extract, orris pallida, and white ambergris from the West of Ireland. However, it does not smell particularly ‘white’, at least not in the manner that most people would interpret it in the context of a scent, i.e., creamy, cloudy, milky, icy in texture, with lots of white musks, blond woods, and so on.

 

Instead, Truffe Blanche is quite an earthy, dusty scent, its character driven in the main by a smoky birch tar, which loses no time in mopping up all the juicy sweetness of the Meyer lemon and florals used up top. Thanks to the benzoin, birch, a charred (meaty) guaiac wood, and white ambergris, Truffle Blanche smells most enticingly of old books, desiccated wood, soot, black leather, and the remnants of ash in the grate. The camphoraceous facet of benzoin is in evidence here, too, but the scent never feels fresh or minty.

 

As the scent develops, a few of the sweeter, more animalic notes make a run for it. Escaping from underneath the rafters of that leathery dust are a bittersweet ‘roasted’ caramel note, a dry vanilla bean, and a pungent, honeyed civet. The contrast between dusty library papers and syrupy-dirty civet is tremendously effective. Truffe Blanche succeeds because it manages to both smell great on the skin and evoke a place or a mood. 

 

Oddly, Truffe Blanche smells very differently on the skin compared to on the toothpick I used to fish out a drop. On wood, it smells immediately like a dry, caramelized vanilla – almost purely white ambergris and benzoin, with a faint smudge of soiled panties. On the skin, the dusty, smoky effects of the birch tar are far more in evidence and linger longer. However, it is worth noting that it too winds up in the same dry, ambergris-civet vanilla and benzoin track.

 

Truffe Blanche is, for me, one of the all-time standouts of the Sultan Pasha Attar range. If you too love the scent of dry vanilla pods, white ambergris, books, and dusty libraries, then this is most definitely worth your time.

 

 

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

 

Sheikh al Faransi (Abdul Karim Al Faransi/Maison Anthony Marmin)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Sheikh al Faransi is a bestial blend of ambergris, oud, and amber that is intensely evocative of the sea, mountains, earth, and rot. It opens on a note of sweet varnishy decay, like a mixture of mold on an apple and mildewy furniture left to fester in an abandoned mansion. Something about the blend seems on the verge of collapse, which introduces the thrill of uncertainty.

 

Slowly the halitosis stink of grey-brown ambergris begins to peek out through the woody rot, bringing with it its unique alchemy of sea air, silt, and horsehair. It is met with a light dusting of icing sugar, likely an amber and sandalwood sweetener placed there to offset the suggestive saltiness of the ambergris.

 

For the longest time, the perfume lingers in a midsection of sea salt and sweet powdered amber. But the drydown is pure ambergris in the fullness of its mammalian splendor. It is gorgeous, and 180° removed from its rotting, feral, damply-fruited start. For a mukhallat, it is decidedly non-linear and exciting to wear. Recommended to those who are looking for a wild ride.

 

 

 

silencethesea (Strangelove NYC)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

silencethesea immediately joins the ranks of ambergris perfumes to try before you die. Although there are other notes or materials, to my nose, this smells as close to a pure ambergris tincture as is possible in niche perfumery.

 

Ambergris can smell very differently from piece to piece, grade to grade, etc., but the ambergris in silencethesea smells like a deserted beach in winter. It has a dry, oceanic smell, like the smell of stones and rocks left to dry in the sun after the tide has gone out. Dry salt, minerals, and the stony loneliness of inanimate objects on a beach with no people around to witness it.

 

Silencethesea smells completely organic to me – elemental, and a bit wild. It has the type of aroma that one finds utterly normal in nature but does not expect to find in a personal perfume, and thus, it feels shocking. It is raw and slightly intimate.

 

There is no warmth to the aroma, apart from the vague funkiness inherent to ambergris that reminds us that this is a substance that originated in the intestine of an animal. Wearing it is like wearing no perfume at all, because it smells more like the cold air in one’s skin and hair after a long, solitary walk on a windswept beach than a perfume. This is not a perfume for community or cuddling or clubbing. It is for the pleasures of solitude.

 

 

Photo by Shibi Zidhick on Unsplash

 

White Cedar Rose (Mellifluence)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

This scent is dominated by a buttery, grass-fed coconut milk accord with an oddly meaty ‘lime peel’ quality to it. Coconut can smell both creamy and savory, an effect that is pushed to breaking point here. In fact, if beaten any further, one suspects that the lactonic accord at the heart of White Cedar Rose would start forming small lumps of butter.

 

The cedar helps stabilize things by bulking out the coconut milk and adding a saline muskiness. But the citrusy, rosy brightness that cuts through the salted butter and coconut is what ultimately turns this simple coconut tanning cream into a delightful rum-and-coconut cocktail treat not far removed from Creed’s Virgin Island Water.

 

Once the crazy lactones calm down a bit, I can perceive more clearly where the beefy saltiness is coming from – a golden, toffee-like, but also downright marshy ambergris and civet pairing in the base. The creaminess of the coconut and the bright lime notes slot into place over this sexy, skin-like ambergris for a result that is just wonderful. The clean smokiness of the cedar notes combines with the salty, sweaty skin notes and coconut milk to conjure an image of steamy lumberyards and beaches. If you love Virgin Island Water by Creed, Sex and the Sea by Francesca Bianchi, or even Cadjmere by Parfumerie Generale, then make it a priority to sample White Cedar Rose.

 

 

 

Yeti Attar 2012 (Rising Phoenix Perfumery)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

This is the single best double billing of ambergris and sandalwood currently in production. (Though, given the ominous 2012 tag in the title, I am not so sure about the ‘currently in production’ bit). Still, if you can get it, you are in for quite the experience. Yeti Attar coats the skin in a liquid hug of savory-sweet sandalwood with nuances of creamed coconut, peanut shell, and melted Irish butter. There is little better, when you are a sandalwood lover, than smelling the real deal and in such generous amounts.

 

Yeti Attar has a relatively simple structure – sandalwood, then ambergris, and then sandalwood again, like the best sandwich you ever ate but don’t remember ordering. When materials are as good as these – like the best conversationalists at a party – your job is simply to introduce them to each other and then leave them alone to do their thing. The ambergris used here is a subtle, golden one, with a spectrum of aromas ranging from earthy tobacco to damp newspaper and finally to dry, salty newspapers left out on a beach to curl up and yellow at the edges.

 

It is difficult to smell the ambergris in its totality when you smell it directly from the skin, and in fact, its nuances only reveal themselves in full when sniffed alongside something else on your other hand. This phenomenon is true of all attars featuring the finest grades of white ambergris – the scent profile is hauntingly subtle but its effect on the overall scent profound and noticeable. Once my nose smells another attar, and then returns to the Yeti Attar, I suddenly grasp all the facets of the ambergris used. Strange sensation!

 

The ambergris used here is soft, earthy, saliva-ish, intimate, and golden, like just-licked skin. It is not overbearing, dirty, or animalic in a horsey way. Yeti Attar 2012 is sensual and delicate to the point of being ethereal. A must-try for any sandalwood and ambergris lover.

 

 

 

About Me:  A two-time Jasmine Award winner for excellence in perfume journalism, I write a blog (this one!) and have authored many guides, articles, and interviews for Basenotes.  (My day-to-day work is in the scientific research for development world).  Thanks to the generosity of friends and acquaintances in the perfume business, I have been privileged enough to smell the raw materials that go into perfumes and learn about the role they play in both Western and Eastern perfumery.   Artisans have sent vials of the most precious materials on earth such as ambergris, deer musk, and oud.  But I have also spent thousands of my own money, buying oud oils directly from artisans and tons of dodgy (and possibly illegal) stuff on eBay.  In the reviews sections, I will always tell you where my sample came from and whether I paid for it or not.

 

Source of samples: I purchased samples from Amouage, Maison Anthony Marmin, Arabian Oud, and Mellifliuence. The samples from Rising Phoenix Perfumery, Abdul Samad al Qurashi, Strangelove NYC, Al Shareef Oudh and Sultan Pasha were sent to me free of charge either by the brand or a distributor. The sample from Aloes of Ish was sent to me by a Basenotes friend.

 

Note on monetization: My blog is not monetized.  But if you’d like to support my work or show appreciation for any of the content I put out, you can always buy me a coffee using the little buymeacoffee button.  Thank you! 

 

Cover Image: Custom-designed by Jim Morgan.

 

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Ambergris Attars & CPOs Cult of Raw Materials Review Single note exploration The Attar Guide

The Attar Guide: Ambergris Reviews A-E

2nd March 2022

 

 

Afrah (Amouage)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

The only nice thing I can say about Afrah is that its three-way clash between the fruity, musky ‘shampoo’ aroma of champaca flowers, the licorice-like basil, and the marine bilge unpleasantness of a soft, pooey (black) ambergris is, uh, original.

 

The opening is heady, with the champaca taking on the form of sticky peach syrup mashed into a sweaty clump of indolic flowers.  The basil gives the champaca a salty, minty licorice kick that lightens the load somewhat, but, in general, Afrah is heavy going.  There is something indigestible about its cyanide-ish brew of white flowers, honey, peach, and bitter almond. It is alluring and toxic in equal measure, reminding me of Hypnotic Poison (Dior) in feel, if not in aroma.

 

My main objection is that the civety stink of the ambergris refuses to play well with the other notes.  It manages to recreate with uncomfortable accuracy the sweaty, sugared pungency of the skin of someone with a medical condition like Type 2 diabetes.  I think should stop here lest I offend anyone who loves it.

 

 

Photo by Yulia Khlebnikova on Unsplash 

 

Ambergris Civet Caramel (Agarscents Bazaar)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Ambergris Civet Caramel opens with a blast of intensely aromatic aromas, chief among them the ferrous twang of burnt caramel and the bitter, woody edge of freshly-ground Arabica beans.  In fact, the aroma is so true to life that it feels like you are standing directly behind the barista at some artisanal Ethiopian joint while they grind the beans to go into your pour-over.

 

The bitter char on the caramel saves the blend from excessive sweetness, and the coffee grounds give it a woody edge that is a pleasant surprise in a scent with the word caramel in its title.  Red-gold hints of maple syrup and autumn leaves thread through the coffee and caramel gloom, making me wonder if that a touch of immortelle has been roped in to add its handsome, late October sunshine appeal.

 

The ambergris makes its presence known very quickly for such a bolshy crew, elbowing past the maple caramel, singed coffee grounds, and autumn leaves to assert its marshy presence.  The ambergris used in this blend manifests as an unclean combination of licked skin and unwashed hair.  This salty funk blends well with the dry caramel for an effect that is far woodier and far less gourmand that one might imagine.

 

Gourmand fans – try this.  But be aware that you really need to love less conventionally pleasing accords, such as burned coffee grounds and salty marine funk, to fully appreciate it.  Fans of the half-edible, half-woody Parfumerie Generale scents such as Coze and Aomassaï will click with it.  Pink Sugar lovers need not bother.

 

 

 

Ambergris Grade I (Majid Muzaffar Iterji)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Ambergris Grade I is an interesting take on ambergris.  It does not initially smell of ambergris, but rather of bright soapy lemon and indeterminate fruits.  Later, however, hints of an outdoorsy sweetness with a side order of salt and lightly-toasted tobacco leaf signal its presence.  Most tinctures of white ambergris share a certain lightness of aroma that smells very little of anything save for mineralic rocks baking in sunshine and fresh sea air.  And this is the case here.

 

The mineralic glow of this grade of ambergris is the same as that used in exclusive Western perfumes such as the now-discontinued (but brilliant) Angelique Encens by Creed, and the glittery Encens Mythique d’Orient (Guerlain).  Not only does ambergris act as a fixative in these perfumes, but it magnifies the effect of the other materials – incense, rose – rendering their texture airy and almost effervescent.  The cool thing about Ambergris Grade I is that it allows us to study this effect in isolation.

 

 

 

Ambergris Mukhallat Arabiya (Agarscents Bazaar)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Ambergris Mukhallat Arabiya is less of an ambergris scent and more an archetypal attar smell, i.e.,  starchy saffron and high-pitched roses blended together.  This familiar rose-saffron pairing is enormously popular and thus finds traction in every single attar house.  The problem is that it runs the risk of being a little too familiar.  Either you have to put a twist on it for it to stand out or else you produce a version that out-exquisites all others in the crowded field.  Ambergris Mukhallat Arabiya, though competent, fails to do either.

 

The model makes sense from a compositional point of view.  The pungency of the leathery saffron is mitigated by the soft sweetness of the rose, and in return, the rose gains a backbone.  This rose-saffron attar idea has been lifted wholesale into Western perfumery.  Most Western oud-themed niche perfumes are constructed around a central axis of rose and saffron, with a dollop of synthetic oud added in for extra screech woodiness.  This template, repeated from brand to brand, has inculcated in Western customers such a strong association between the materials of oud, rose, and saffron that, like Pavlov’s dog, all we have to do is smell saffron and we fill in the oud blank on our own.

 

And this is what happens here.  When you first smell Ambergris Mukhallat Arabiya, the spicy rose-saffron duet makes the mind flash on oud.  There is no oud here, of course.  However, if you are a Westerner and want to have a rosy saffron mukhallat that recalls the traditional rose-oud-saffron triad without paying oud prices, then Ambergris Mukhallat Arabiya may do the job.  It is a somewhat traditional, sharp, and spicy blend, tilted towards the austere.

 

The delicate sweetness of ambergris is nowhere to be found in this scent.  It is missing, presumed dead under the pungent weight of the other materials.  Briefly there is the suggestion of something radiant, sparkling, and metallic lifting the spice and flowers, which could be the cited ambergris.  But in terms of actual aroma, the ambergris is undetectable.  It is simply a decent rose and saffron mukhallat.

 

 

 

Ambergris Taifi (Agarscents Bazaar)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

The thrillingly tart, peppery scent of the Ta’ifi rose fills the nose upon application.  The scent of a Ta’ifi rose always reminds me of a raw beef filet encrusted in green peppercorns and harsh lemon peel, and this bears true here.  However, this version of Ta’ifi rose is far softer than the purer versions I have smelled from both Abdul Samad Al Qurashi and Al Shareef Oudh.  Its lack of purity translates into a smell that is less pungent, which might be more appealing to noses unused to the nose-searing properties of the unadulterated stuff.

 

This mukhallat possibly contains a small quantity of Ta’ifi rose mixed with a greater quantity of rosa damascena oil from another region, such as Turkey or Bulgaria.  Or it might be that only Bulgarian rosa damascena was used, as rose oil harvested from Bulgaria features many of the same sour, herbaceous aspects of the Ta’ifi rose.  Either way, it doesn’t really matter (except to a purist) for this rose note is sublime – fresh, tart, with a pickled lemon edge that makes you want to smack your lips.

 

Ambergris Taifi becomes rosier and creamier as it develops, blooming into a rich and durable red rose accord that shimmers on top of the golden, salt-marsh ambergris beneath.  The ambergris does not assert its presence strongly aside from a salty radiance.  Instead, it acts as a heat lamp, magnifying the rose and causing it to vibrate in 3D splendor.  The blend finishes in a blaze of salted caramel and rose, casting a pink glow around the wearer.  For those who can stomach the price, this is a great rose-ambergris mukhallat.

 

 

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

 

Ambergris White Blackberry (Agarscents Bazaar)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Fruit is difficult to capture well in attar and mukhallat perfumery because there are no natural enfleurages or extracts of fruit, leaving the perfumer with the choice between Jolly Rancher synthetics or naturals with a somewhat fruity character, like osmanthus or ylang.  Berries in particular are hard to get right.

 

When a synthetic fruit note is used alongside a bunch of naturals, its synthetic character can often become painfully apparent, like plopping a fake Nike trainer down beside an authentic one.  Place a fruit synthetic alongside real ambergris, for example, and it has the potential to stick out and catch on you, like a clothes pin forgotten inside a sweater.

 

Thankfully, this is not the case in Ambergris White Blackberry.  The blackberry note, though certainly synthetic, manages to be dark, plump, and slightly syrupy, with none of the ‘overexposed photograph’ shrillness of most synthetic berry notes.  This is probably due to the softening effect provided by a tandem of sweet, creamy amber and the earthy, musty ambergris.  Neither the amber nor the ambergris clouds the structure, however.  The texture remains crystalline, allowing the luscious berry to shine through uninterrupted. 

 

There is also a momentary hit of spice – cinnamon or clove perhaps – but this recedes quickly, leaving the focus on the blackberry.  The blackberry note is fleshy, but thankfully, doesn’t attempt photorealism.  It is more the suggestion of pulp and stained fingers than the metallic brightness of most synthetic berry notes.

 

Two ambery accords are notable here.  First, a traditional amber accord with perhaps a hint of maltol, acting like a simple sugar syrup to buffer the first explosion of berry flavors upon application.  Then, the earthy, almost fungal tones of the ambergris, which here smell like a clod of clean, wet marine soil freshly dug up near a harbor.  The mixture of the sweet and earthy really makes this an amber-ambergris duet really worth wearing.

 

This is one of the few fruity mukhallats that I can recommend without reservation, even to those who normally find fruit notes in perfumery off-putting.  The sweet, earthy magic of the ambergris is suggestive of the ground from which the blackberry bushes sprang, giving us the full blackberry-picking fantasy of ripe fruit, leaves, and humus-rich forest floor.  A true Pan’s Labyrinth scent.

 

 

Photo by emy on Unsplash

 

Ambergris White Chocolate Opium (Agarscents Bazaar)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Ambergris White Chocolate Opium opens with a rich, nutty accord that smells like the steam that rises off a pan of flaked almonds fried gently in brown sugar.  This accord is enrobed in a silky white chocolate casing that manages to be creamy without being sweet.  Think translucent nut nougat dipped in artisanal white chocolate, with perhaps a tiny sprinkling of sea salt and black pepper for contrast.  It is admirably restrained, teetering on the edge of full-on gourmand territory but ultimately pulling back to give you a taste of chocolate and nuts without any of the calories, bloating, or regret.

 

Slowly, the ambergris in the blend begins to make its presence known.  A sweet and salty smell, full of brisk air and sunshine.  There is something of old paper here but also freshly upturned soil.  There is the sleepy suggestion of mustiness, like the mildewy aroma that clings to clothes taken out of storage for the winter season.  This aroma is not unpleasant because it never comes across to the nose as unnatural.  It simply mirrors the familiar scents of home, namely, closed-up closets, earth, newspapers, salt, vanilla extract, and the crumbed tobacco leaves from cigarettes. 

 

Unfortunately, the rich white chocolate accord does not last past the first hour and is disappointingly faint from the second hour onwards.  Longevity is good, but with the scent whittling down to a mere shadow of itself within hours, it is like buying an expensive balloon at a fairground and having it deflate to the size of a condom within minutes.  Still, something about the smell of salty, creamy white chocolate in Ambergris White Chocolate Opium is so pleasing that one is tempted to forgive its wimpy performance metrics.  Maybe.

 

 

 

Ambergris White Gold (Agarscents Bazaar)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Ambergris White Gold is a great option for those who like the idea of ambergris but can’t deal with its often very animalic properties that often resemble halitosis, low-tide effluents, and dirty horse stables.  This is the friendliest, most approachable ambergris mukhallat on the block.  Opening with a thick caramel note so intense it approaches bitterness, Ambergris White Gold soon evens out into a musty, vanillic accord that smells like a cross between Communion wafers and old paper.  Underneath these softly sugared ‘white’ elements, there is an undertow of stale saliva and warm horse flank.  These notes merely nod at the presence of real ambergris but are not dirty enough to scare the truly skank-averse.

 

The blend is based on white ambergris, which is the finest and most expensive grade of ambergris.  White ambergris does not smell foul – in fact, it barely has a smell at all other than the scent of fresh, mineral seaside air.  If you smell white ambergris for a long time, you will also notice the subtle aroma of sea salt, paper, vanilla, and tobacco leaves.  These more delicate properties of ambergris have been enhanced in Ambergris White Gold through the addition of a caramelized amber note up top and a dry, minty vanilla in the base.  The overall effect is of a sweet, papery vanilla with facets of white sugar, pastries, salt, and clean marine air.

 

I recommend Ambergris White Gold to people who like the cleaner, sweeter side of ambergris, as well as to those who love gourmand notes such as salted caramel, pastry, vanilla, and mint toffee.  The closest equivalent to this in the niche sector would be Dzing! by L’Artisan Parfumeur, which employs a similar gourmand approach to an animalic material (musk).  Think of Ambergris White Gold as a sheaf of old manuscript papers, grown dusty and sweet with time, and finally, lowered into steaming vats of hot condensed milk and sea salt.

 

 

 

Amber Jewels (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Lovers of ambergris owe it to themselves to smell something like Amber Jewels at least once in their life, if only to establish a benchmark for quality.  The notes list says ambergris only, but forget that, as there is clearly a lot of labdanum doing the heavy lifting in the lower register.  The opening is pure marine air, thick, pungent, but also hyper-clean, as if all the elements have been doused in disinfectant.  It smells huge with a capital H – a hulking block of dusty rock, baking in the sun, the air fizzing with hot sea minerals, salt, and ozone.

 

Under the dusty minerals and caked-on sea salt, there is something balsamic shifting, keeping everything moist.  This comes across as something thick, tarry and black, with a rubbery sweetness in its undertow.  This charred rubber is a facet common to many ambergris-based fragrances.  It carries a tinge of smoke too, similar to the petroleum honk of some jasmine materials.  The sweet tar sitting under the marine notes acts as a layer of insulation for the more diffuse ambergris topnotes.

 

The ambergris is eventually joined by a rather masculine leather-amber accord, likely to be labdanum.  This base thickens and sweetens the ambergris somewhat, cloaking its salty sparkle in a dense blanket of leathery resin.  It is important to note, however, that the amber-ambergris accord never tumbles too far down the well of sweetness.  This is not the affably herbaceous amber of, for example, Ambre Precieux (Maître Parfumeur et Gantier) or Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens).  In fact, it retains a slightly rough, textured woodiness that is very characterful.  It is precisely this salty, woody edge that will recommend itself to fans of amber scents that walk on the macho side of the fence.   Although not equivalent or even similar in smell, Ambra Meditteranea by Profumi del Forte has a similar brusqueness, so fans of that might want to give this a try. 

 

 

Photo by J Lopes on Unsplash

 

Amber Ood (Gulab Singh Johrimal)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Despite the name, Amber Ood is neither amber nor oud but ambergris, and specifically the black, soft kind of ambergris so fresh it resembles the whale turd from whence it came.  Freshly dotted on the skin, Amber Ood smells like old peanut butter, ancient fishing tackle that has been shat on by seagulls, and the halitosis stench of someone who’s dislodged a kernel of corn from their back molars after not having flossed for two months.

 

I would love to be able to tell you that it gets better.

 

Both Indians and Arabs seem to love the fouler pieces of ambergris (black ambergris), finding the smell intensely erotic and skin-like.  But although the smell does eventually reveal some interesting hints of old newspaper, tobacco, and marine soil, Amber Ood retains this turd-cum-halitosis stench all the way through, ceding only to a bitter fir balsam and Ambroxan pairing at the tail end that smells like it has been cross-contaminated with a splash of Dior Sauvage.  The Ambroxan does nothing to mitigate the essential foulness of the smell.  Rather, it accentuates it, broadcasting the stench like an airborne virus.

 

 

 

Ambre du Soleil (Sultan Pasha Attars)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Ambre du Soleil is a bright, lemony frankincense and bergamot blend over a rugged ambergris.  I suspect that the ambergris tincture was made from black ambergris, because there is a softly dung-like aspect to it at first that might seem fecal to some.  It might even have been boosted by a drop of civet.  But mostly this smells like pure ambergris tincture to me, made from a non-white grade of ambergris.

 

Later, the blend develops into a natural, warm marine aroma, with tinges of low tide and earthy, raw tobacco to remind us of its origin.  Ambre du Soleil is an excellent example of the depth that natural ambergris can add to a blend, serving as an amplifying glass for all the other elements in the mix.

 

 

 

Ehsas (Al Haramain)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

A musky, salty ambergris-based fragrance with more than a lingering air of cheap men’s sports cologne.  Ehas opens with a citrus and white musk combination that is about as comfortable as someone squirting lemon juice into your eye.

 

The ambergris note adds a dirty, musky salinity, and there are some nice green florals in the mix, but really, nothing in this mukhallat distinguishes it beyond the standard Iso E Super- or Ambroxan-powered sports dross so popular in modern masculine perfumery.  If you like this sort of nose-singing rubbish, just buy Sauvage and be done with it.  No need to get fancy schmancy with an attar.

 

 

 

Encens Mythique d’Orient (Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics)

Type: dupe, concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Encens Mythique d’Orient by Guerlain is a resinous ambergris fragrance with a bright rose and lots of aldehydes.  It is a rather complex fragrance, and not easy to dupe.  When worn on its own, the dupe captures the general feel of the scent quite well, but worn side by side with the original, some vital differences emerge.

 

The first difference is texture.  The steam-pressed hiss of aldehydes of the original is missing in the dupe, leading to a slightly flattened effect, as if all the air had been let out of the tires.  The original has incredible body and lift, with salty ambergris adding a rough, animalic sparkle.  The dupe lacks the radiance central to the character of the real Encens Mythique d’Orient and therefore most of the point.

 

The other main difference is in the quality of the rose.  Whereas the original uses a sharp Ta’if rose – dry, peppery, and neon pink – the dupe uses an ordinary Turkish rose synth and tries to beef it up by adding a jumble of mint, blackberry, and raspberry notes, a discordant mishmash that doesn’t feature at all in the original.  The dupe is also less finely soapy-musky than the original, veering off instead into berry jam territory.

 

Sometimes, the most important question to ask of dupes is whether someone would mistake it as the original when smelled in isolation, or in the wild.  I think that the dupe is recognizable – just about – as Encens Mythique d’Orient.  But it can only sustain the illusion for a short time.  In the end, the dupe morphs into a blackberry musk with a curiously waxy edge, reminiscent of Mûre et Musc by L’Artisan Parfumeur.  If you are fond of this particular L’Artisan Parfumeur scent, then you will probably like this dupe for what it is, rather than caring about what it is not.  Those specifically in search of Encens Mythique d’Orient, however – well, this ain’t it.  

 

 

 

About Me:  A two-time Jasmine Award winner for excellence in perfume journalism, I write a blog (this one!) and have authored many guides, articles, and interviews for Basenotes.  (My day-to-day work is in the scientific research for development world).  Thanks to the generosity of friends and acquaintances in the perfume business, I have been privileged enough to smell the raw materials that go into perfumes and learn about the role they play in both Western and Eastern perfumery.   Artisans have sent vials of the most precious materials on earth such as ambergris, deer musk, and oud.  But I have also spent thousands of my own money, buying oud oils directly from artisans and tons of dodgy (and possibly illegal) stuff on eBay.  In the reviews sections, I will always tell you where my sample came from and whether I paid for it or not.

 

Source of samples: I purchased samples from Majid Muzaffar Iterji, Al Haramain, Amouage, Agarscents Bazaar, and Universal Perfumes and Cosmetics. The samples from Abdul Samad al Qurashi and Sultan Pasha were sent to me free of charge either by the brand or a distributor. The sample from Gulab Singh Johrimal was sent to me by a Basenotes friend.

 

Note on monetization: My blog is not monetized.  But if you’d like to support my work or show appreciation for any of the content I put out, you can always buy me a coffee using the little buymeacoffee button.  Thank you! 

 

Cover Image: Custom-designed by Jim Morgan.

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