Prima T (Bruno Acampora)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Prima T is a musky floral chypre that leans on the authentic stink of natural floral absolutes for the bulk of its structure. The standout floral here is clearly the narcissus, an oily green floral note that mysteriously turns to pollen dust on the skin. Narcissus is an interesting flower because it smells fresh and green, but also funky, like the compacted layer of soiled hay in a horse stall.
The fertile honk of narcissus up front is backed by a compact webbing of roses, lily, muguet, and jasmine, which, though less distinct than the narcissus, lends a beautifully creamy, retro vibe to the fragrance. While there is no moss involved, the earthy greenness of galbanum resin lends an ashy bitterness that fills in the oakmoss blank on the chypre form. The effect is like cigarette smoke blown through a bouquet of mixed flowers.
Prima T smells old-fashioned in the best possible sense. It recalls a period of perfumery where the powdery richness of flowers such as daffodils and roses were celebrated rather than relegated to the background, or God forbid, derided as old-womanish or grandmotherly. As far as examples of narcissus-centered fragrances go, Prima T is more color-saturated than the current-day version of Chamade (Guerlain), as well as creamier and more animalic than the now sadly discontinued Le Temps d’Une Fête (Parfums de Nicolaï).
In other words, fans of this particular green floral style would do well to look in the direction of Prima T, especially if currently-available versions of old favorites have suffered badly through reformulation and cost-cutting exercises.
Princess Jawaher Blend (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)
Type: mukhallat
Princess Jawaher opens with a juicy bergamot on top of some warm, fuzzy oud, stretching its limbs out into a beautiful bouquet of sweet, creamy flowers – jasmine, neroli, and ylang. The floral accord is so limpid and sweet you might be tempted to neck it like a liqueur.
Backing the volley of floral and citrus notes is an oud note that has been cleaned up for public consumption. There is no bilious sourness or rank animal scat that might challenge the average Western nose. But the oud note is not linear, either. It begins its life as a warm, high-toned note akin to leather or hay, but picks up traces of smoke, resin, and woodiness as it approaches the final stretch. And honestly, were it not for the gravitas that this note adds, Princess Jawaher Blend might be just another light, unremarkable floral.
Following the creamy whoosh of white and yellows florals of the opening, a jammy rose rises like a Phoenix, the suddenness of its arrival a wonderful shock. This neon-colored rose gives definition to the creamier white florals, and when the flowers meet the oud, perfect synchronicity between smoke and sweetness, florals and woods, cream and spice, is achieved. Held together by the toothsome chew of caramelized amber, this is the kind of thing that makes me forgive Abdul Samad Al Qurashi for the bubblegummy floral dross they often try to palm off on us females.
The jump in quality or complexity between the lower price echelons of the big Emirati houses and the top tier is sudden rather than incremental. Take Princess Jawaher Blend, for example. This is listed as ~$365 per tola. A favorite of mine from the lower-end blends, Al Ghar, costs $135 per tola. I like them both. They pursue broadly similar themes. Realistically, what could possibly justify the price difference between these two oils of $230?
For many customers – absolutely nothing. Yet, there is an undeniable hike in quality and complexity from Al Ghar to Princess Jawaher Blend, most notably in the quality (and quantity) of oud used. Compared to Princess Jawaher Blend, Al Ghar now feels light, simple, and almost insubstantial. This is to not detract from Al Ghar, but to point out that, in oil-based perfumery, the correlation between price and quality is much tighter than in commercial or niche perfumery.
Rain (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Have no fear – despite the name, there is really nothing aquatic about Rain. Rather, this is a clean floral musk with a tender, fluffy-pillow of (at a guess) mint, rose, hawthorn, amber, pale woods, and heliotrope. It is cucumberish in parts, as well as lightly honeyed, leading me to think that this is largely a mimosa-centered composition.
In style, it is similar to Jo Malone’s Mimosa and Cardamom, as well as to Malle’s luminous L’Eau d’Hiver. The only fault I find with Rain is that it is reminiscent of several nineties mainstream scents as well as the clean, breezy (but ultimately flimsy) style of Jo Malone. And for this kind of money, one expects something a bit more, well, special.
Rayaheen (Amouage)
Type: mukhallat
A varnish-like Taifi rose explodes upon first contact with skin, painting the air in a glistening slick of thorns, lemons, and solvent. The rose in Rayaheen runs very close to the acid-tinged ‘bloody rose’ accords in Amouage’s Opus X. Although not listed, I suspect the sharpening presence of geranium leaf, because there is a metallic glint to the rose that gives the scent a blue-green gleam, like petrol on a puddle. This aspect causes the rose to shimmer hard, in an almost preternatural way. The shiny, disco-bright rose is, in turn, supported by sweeter, smokier notes, which to my nose, consist of mostly frankincense mixed with dry tobacco leaf. Rayaheen is unfortunately very difficult to find now.
Red Rose (Al Rehab)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Red Rose is a dupe for Kenzo’s Flower, which means that it is a clean, powdery rose resting on a pillow of white musks. The opening is sharp and green, with a minty swagger that reminds me of violet leaf or geranium, but soon settling into a pale, rosy powder. It smells girlish, like rose-scented lipsticks, body dusting powder, and those Pierre Hermes Ispahan macarons. A silvery thread of carnation emphasizes the spicy vintage floral vibe.
Red Rose is perfectly pitched as a young girl’s first rose scent. But I would also recommend it to lovers of the retro-vibed cosmetic genre, which includes scents such as Teint de Neige (Lorenzo Villoresi), Ombre Rose (Brosseau), and even Lipstick Rose (Malle). Personally, I think it smells rather like a bar of pink soap, which is a nice thing to smell like once in a blue moon. (I imagine it working well in a water shortage).
Rêve Narcotique (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
A beautiful mukhallat that was originally composed as a tribute to vintage Opium, Rêve Narcotique turns out to be a much softer, retro-styled floral amber than the all-out spice and resin bomb I had been expecting. Vintage Opium’s floral note comes from a carnation-rose axis, shored up by a hot, powdery clove note that blows even more heat into the smoky, balsamic base. Rêve Narcotique, in contrast, builds its floral component along a warmer, creamier axis of ylang, gardenia, jasmine, and tuberose, producing a slightly grassy floral bouquet that counterpoints the smoky, balsamic basenotes more dramatically.
The predominant floral here – to my nose at least – is a dark, phenolic jasmine surrounded by smoldering resins, making it difficult not to draw a dotted line between Rêve Narcotique and Anubis (Papillon). But unlike Anubis, which ends in a fiery bath of smoldering resins and chewed-out leather, Rêve Narcotique slides into an extended gardenia-tuberose riff.
The gardenia in Rêve Narcotique begins quietly but quickly gathers pace to become a surprisingly significant player in the composition. It has an almost savory thickness that is very satisfying, like wild mushroom soup with lashings of double cream. The green milkiness of the note also reminds one of the slightly grassy taste of fresh Irish butter, recalling the meadows in which the cows have grazed. It is rare to find a gardenia note as good as this, so gardenia lovers should make sampling this mukhallat a priority.
On balance, the florals in Rêve Narcotique are dark, serious, and ultimately, delicate. People who are afraid of the loudness and shrill sweetness of the Big White Floral category of fragrances need not worry about the florals in Rêve Narcotique. Natural floral enfleurages and absolutes, minus any synthetics to sharpen them into a sonic boom that can be felt several rooms over, tend to be subtly fragrant rather than loud. Furthermore, the grassiness of the gardenia and the burnt-tire smokiness of the jasmine take the florals here as far away from that big bouquet of wedding flowers as you can get.
Rose Bouquet (April Aromatics)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Rose Bouquet is the oil version of Rosenlust, the eau de parfum. Both are rose-centered compositions that blend Turkish rose otto with Bulgarian rose, rosewood, pink grapefruit, tonka bean, orris, and ambrette. The quality of the rose absolutes and ottos used here is great, with the meaty lushness of the Turkish varietal and the sour sharpness of Bulgarian roses duking it out in a glorious battle that benefits everyone.
Unusually, the usual ratios of complexity versus simplicity found in comparing the eau de parfum and oil formats are reversed here, with the eau de parfum emerging as a fresh, powdery rose soliflore, while the civety lavender-vanilla dimension of the oil version turns it a rose-heavy version of Jicky (Guerlain). It is a surprise, but a welcome one. In this case, the oil takes home the prize.
Rose Galata (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Rose Galata shares a certain citronella-like brightness with Rose Snow, below, but is fuller in body – velvet compared to cotton. Laced with a red hot, Eugenol-rich carnation note, it rasps along in a rather loud, cigarette-hoarse voice that I find rather attractive. A spiced amber in the base fills out the air pockets, lending it an extra heft around the hips that perhaps it does not need. Heady, spicy, but with spectacularly poor volume control, Rose Galata is for rose purists who enjoy the stadium-filling radiance of scents such as Opium (Yves Saint Laurent) and Cinnabar (Estée Lauder).
Rose L’Orange (April Aromatics)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Rose L’Orange is a fizzy orange crème petit fours enlivened with a bitter, green-tipped rose. It possesses an unusual texture that moves from syrupy to powdery without ever straying into sweetness. It feels instantly feels happy, sunny, and maybe even a little sexy, in a good-natured way. It is not dark or cluttered. The orange blossom note in Rose L’Orange also gives the perfume a mealy ‘corn masa’ facet similar to that of L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Seville à L’Aube.
While the eau de parfum stays firmly in the happy place between creamy orange and green rose, the oil version plays up the intense bitterness of the rose otto, with an edge as herbal as a sheaf of freshly-crushed lavender. Volume-wise, the oil is thinner and flatter than the eau de parfum, as if all the notes have been compressed into one line.
The oil version is considerably less sweet than the original eau de parfum, even though the original itself is not terribly sweet. The oil lacks both the snappy effervescence of the original format, as well as a certain creaminess, which could be seen as a plus for men. Think of the oil format here as almost a pure Taifi-style rose otto compared to the fully-fleshed-out rose composition that is the eau de parfum.
Rose Myosotis (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Rose? No, not rose, but rather heliotrope, violets, and orange blossom. Despite the name, Rose Myosotis is a powdery, deep-bosomed floral amber in the L’Heure Bleue (Guerlain) mold, all violet-eyed seduction and steely sexual intent – think Maggie in that white dress in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
A doughy, spiced ylang heart tightens the memory link to the pre-war Guerlain. But there is also a suggestion of Bal à Versailles (Jean Desprez) and the newer Cuir Cannage (Dior). Rose Myosotis is an old-fashioned, spicy poudrée – a Hermes leather toiletries case smeared with lipstick, powder, bubblegum, gasoline, and a winning dollop of ladylike skank. It is gorgeous but also tremendously sweet. Check your blood sugar levels and then gorge yourself.
Rose Oud (Mr. Perfume)
Type: dupe, concentrated perfume oil
The Mr. Perfume dupe lands in the same general area as the original By Kilian Rose Oud (rose, saffron, oud with a fruity Turkish delight edge), and indeed, someone not overly familiar with the original might find it to be an adequate replacement. But worn side by side with the original, the differences are clear.
The original opens with a tart, lemony rose that feels like Turkish rose petals dipped into acid green bergamot, before softening into dry, saffron-led leather. The dupe, on the other hand, is immediately softer, jammier, and sweeter, its rose note candied in salep and thickened with amber. Texture-wise, the rose in the dupe is wet and jellied, the background notes sweetly ambery in the classic Arabian style. The original is brighter, drier, and more elegant, tilting slightly more towards tart-sour than candied.
The original is more complex and refined, unfolding its different phases slowly over time, whereas the dupe delivers all the action upfront. Projection and longevity are roughly on a par, although the oil starts with a loud bang and then fades into a whisper, while the original maintains a steady volume throughout.
Overall, this is not a bad job. Many people may even prefer the easygoing sweetness and raspberry jam notes of the dupe over the more austere original. In terms of accuracy, however, the jamminess of the rose note pushes the dupe away from By Kilian Rose Oud and into territory more comfortably occupied by Tauer Perfumes Rose Flash.
Rose Oudh (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Rose Oudh draws upon the power of geranium to fuel the full-bodied rosiness of the composition. Geranium also lops in a minty-herbaceous tingle, the bitterness of citrus peel, and a shiny boot polish note. Violet leaf sharpens the opening to a knife point. It smells rather like blood, varnish, and rose petals ripped from a thorny rose bush, lending the perfume an angry, even hostile edge.
Saffron dominates in the far reaches, whittling the rosy geranium until it becomes a rose-oud in the style of By Kilian’s Rose Oud, minus the soft lokhoum note to ease you in. Bitter honey adds an animalic flavor but no sweetness or thickness. This is the sort of accord that fits with my idea of ‘haute couture’ Arabian perfumery – angular and uncompromising, a jutting chin chiseled in granite.
Roses (Al Rehab)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
A surprisingly true-to-life rendition of the traditional Bulgarian rose. The extent to which you will enjoy Roses very much depends on the type of exposure you have had to this type of rose, which is sharp and leafy-sour rather than lush or jammy. While some may experience unpleasant flashbacks to the rose toiletries used by their grandmothers, others will experience only the thrilling pungency of a dewy rose freshly-ripped from an English garden. It is all about context, baby.
The closest commercial counterpart to Roses is perhaps Tea Rose by The Perfumer’s Workshop (more natural-smelling) or Rose Absolue by Annick Goutal (lusher, fuller). If you know those fragrances, then use them as a personal yardstick to judge your likely reaction to Roses by Al Rehab. Personally, you couldn’t pay me to wear this, but I recognize it could as easily be manna from heaven to someone else.
Rose Sahara (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
The perfumers at Henry Jacques are evidently very proud of their virulently citrusy rose, because it turns up in at least three compositions – Rose Sahara, Rose Galata, and Rose Snow. To describe the minute differences between them all is to split hairs. Honestly, smell one and you have smelled them all.
Rose Snow is the purest exposition of the note, in that it is really just a vehicle for the rose and little else. Rose Galata adds spice and amber to raise the volume to stadium-filling levels. Rose Sahara switches out the amber for ambergris, resulting in a much more strident, saltier composition. Out of the three, Rose Sahara is the driest and sternest, and therefore perhaps the version that will most appeal to the male sex. (A hint of ‘hard leather’ in the drydown makes it official.)
Rose Snow (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Rose Snow is a bright, citrusy rose with all the acidity of a Taifi rose but none of its resinous lemon peel and pepper notes. It smells like the color lime green. When the aroma settles, the scent of a freshly-cut cabbage rose emerges, simultaneously blowsy and sharp. The citronal and geraniol components of rose oil have been drawn out and exaggerated here by their closest living relatives in the natural world, namely verbena and a minty-rosy geranium. With its unfortunate resemblance to the scent of a citronella candle, the outcome is unfortunately more suited to fighting off mosquitoes than members of the opposite sex.
Rose Snow will satisfy those for whom roses should only ever smell bright, clean, and flood-lit from all angles. Lovers of dark, jammy roses can steer clear.
Rose Taifi Supreme (Arabian Oud)
Type: mukhallat
From the cap, Rose Taifi Supreme smells narcotic and deep, teeming with lush red berries, wine, and a raspberry sherbet rose. On the skin, the lush fruits are sidelined by the tangy green spiciness of the Taifi rose, pitched searingly high, like black pepper sizzling on a dry pan over direct heat.
Rose Taifi Supreme smells simultaneously like the most intense rose you have ever smelled but also like a freshly-cut lemon and not at all like a rose. It smells rosy at a distance, and fiercely spicy up close. Together the disparate impressions mingle to form a 3D image of a Taifi rose, complete with its strong citronal facet.
The drydown is weirdly addictive, a beguiling mixture of dry spice, freshly-cut grass, lemonade, cassis (both the berry and the leaf), and hot pink rose petals. It is similar to Al Ta’if Rose Nakhb Al Arous from ASAQ, but while the ASAQ is so pure that it is absorbed into the bloodstream within the hour, Rose Taifi Supreme lasts far longer on the skin and boast phenomenal sillage. Although there are no other notes listed other than Taifi rose, my guess is that a fixative of some sort – white musk perhaps – has been added to enhance performance. Crucially, though, it does not smell diluted or synthetic.
Rose Taifi Supreme is beautiful and uncompromising. Make sure that you love Taifi rose before investing, but if you do, this oil is a safe bet. Taifi rose lovers will want to wear this straight, but for others, it will really come into its own as a layering agent to lend heavier, darker perfumes, attars, and oud oils a turbo-boost of dazzlingly pure rose.
Rose TRO (Amouage)
Type: rose otto
Rose TRO is a lush, creamy rose guaranteed to satisfy the itch of rose lovers if Homage does not. The TRO in Rose TRO stands for Turkish Rose Otto, which is Rosa Damascena that has been steam-distilled as opposed to chemically extracted (processes that yield rose absolute and CO2 extract rather than an otto).
The attar itself is clear in hue, but despite its translucence, the aroma that bursts onto the skin could only be described as deep red and gold streaks in a purple sky. I was taken aback at how carnal the opening minutes of the fragrance felt on my skin. Thick, heady, and drowning in beeswax, it recalled, for a moment, certain aspects of Lutens’ animalic rose chypre, Rose de Nuit. Past the bluntly sexual opening, however, the attar drops its seductive growl and becomes a purring kitten of a thing.
Either the rose oil used in this is so multifaceted that it can throw out a startling range of rosy ‘tones’ or this attar relies on more than just Turkish Rose Otto for its effect. Whatever the answer – and I doubt we will ever know the truth – the net effect is of something far more complex than one imagines a simple rose oil to be.
At the start, there is a whisper of something citric, but as the rose unfolds, notes of cream soda, milk chocolate, sugared cream, butter cookies, and lokhoum crowd in. It is soft and truffly, but at the same time, dense and rich. Those whose taste runs towards the vanilla-rose-saffron combination found in scents such as Safran Troublant (L’Artisan Parfumeur) and White Oud (Montale) will likely love Rose TRO, because its rose is rendered in the same style, i.e., dessert-like rather than ripped from a bush.
Longevity is higher than average for a pure distilled rose otto, which normally disappears within the hour due to its volatile nature, leading me to suspect there’s at least a little fixative thrown into the mix to help extend the general deliciousness. At $199 per tola, this was originally one of the true bargains of the Amouage attar line. Alas, if you can find it now, it is likely to be more expensive, as is the way with most things that have been taken out of production.
Royal Patchouli (Ajmal)
Type: mukhallat
Priced at the lower end of the Ajmal range, Royal Patchouli is nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable mukhallat. Belying the name, it is, at least initially, far more of a floral vanilla than a patchouli-forward affair. Enriched with the heady bubblegum-banana aroma of ylang, the vanilla thickens up over the course of the wear into a semi-tropical custard – a cross between M. Micallef’s Ylang in Gold and Hiram Green’s Arbolé Arbolé.
This is not Le Labo, however, in that despite its rather secondary role here, there is a bit of the titular ingredient in the formula. The patchouli is subtle, and surprisingly for this material, does not attempt to chew up the scenery. It spends most of its time humming away in the background as a green, minty breath of fresh air. A few hours in, a creamy amber takes over, and this is when the patchouli finally decides to kick it up a notch, doubling down on red-brown richness until the floral vanilla gains a waxy, white chocolate mien, for an almost Coromandel-esque vibe.
Ultimately, Royal Patchouli is a more than serviceable floral vanilla with minty-boozy patchouli undertones and an appealing eggnog-like texture. For those who think they dislike any and all patchouli perfumes, from the middle-earth examples to the fruity ones like Thierry Mugler’s Angel, this mukhallat could prove to be acceptable middle ground.
Ruh al Mogra (Nemat)
Type: mukhallat
There is a certain poetry to the names and titles used in attar perfumery. Ruh al Mogra, for example, translates to ‘soul of Sambac jasmine’, a fitting name for what is essentially an essential oil distilled from Sambac jasmine flowers, with no carrier oil diluting the distillate. However, given the expense involved in producing even small quantities of a true ruh, it is unlikely that Nemat’s version, which costs $22 for four ounces (125 grams), is a pure essential oil. Indeed, the Nemat site is charmingly upfront about this, calling Ruh al Mogra a blend rather than a pure essential oil.
For all its lack of purity, Nemat’s Ruh al Mogra manages to pull off an impressively convincing accurate portrait of a Sambac jasmine essential oil. At first, it is pungently green and screeches with the nail-varnishy wail of benzyl acetate, the grapey isolate in jasmine that gives both ylang and jasmine their petrol-like fruitiness. This rather high-pitched opening might be a little nerve-wracking for anyone used to the creamy, fruity deliciousness of synthetic jasmine. But it is also authentic to the way pure jasmine essential oil smells, so do not write it off just yet. It gets better.
The aroma then flattens out into a cool, damp, earthy smell that has more in common with old wooden furniture and animal fur than flowers. As the nose adjusts, one begins to perceive the very real, living aroma of a jasmine blooming on the vine. This is Arabian jasmine, so there is plenty of leathery spice and an indolic character, but it differs from other Arabian jasmine attars by being less coarsely fruity. There is an attractive dankness to this ruh suggestive of mud and closed-up rooms.
Once it settles, the jasmine aroma stays firmly in this earthy, musky track. Interestingly, many Indian sellers wrongly translate mogra as ambrette seed, and the scent of this ruh makes me wonder if this common misunderstanding stems from the vegetal, ambrette-seed kind of muskiness inherent to natural jasmine oil. Towards the far drydown, it becomes incredibly sour and musky – animalic to the point of offensiveness. Still, it retains a modicum of dignity sillage-wise, and never projects too vulgarly.
This little oil is an education for the nose of a true jasmine lover. Despite its lack of purity or refinement, it gives a very good, naturally rugged picture of Arabian jasmine. Highly recommended for wearing alone or layered under other attars to give a blast of musky fecundity to whatever you’re wearing.
Ruh Gulab (Nemat)
Type: mukhallat
As with most Nemat attars, Ruh Gulab is very good once you get past the off-putting topnotes, as well as any preconceived notion of what rose should smell like. The shocker with Ruh Gulab – a name that translates to ‘soul of the Damask rose’ – is the cloud of bitter, sharp, soapy, and stale notes that bloom malevolently, like a nuclear mushroom cloud, on the skin upon application. In fact, imagine all the undesirable facets of rose you have ever smelled, and you have just visualized the awfulness of the first half hour.
However, get past the rocky first bit and you land in rose heaven, specifically, a warm bath of pure, sweet Turkish rose that is almost syrupy in its richness. There is a hint of rose jam too, although it never strays into gourmand territory. The freshness, sparkle, sweetness, fullness – it is all there, and perfectly balanced so that no one single facet dominates.
Doubtless, this is not a pure ruh of rosa damascena given its relatively low cost, but for that brief stretch in the heart when it explodes into your consciousness as a pure ruh gulab, it is fabulous. The base, which arrives a little sooner than one might wish, is a soapy musk of no distinction. Still, this is worth the price of admission for its Damascus rose heart alone, and for the myriad of layering possibilities.
Russian Centifolia (Rising Phoenix Perfumery)
Type: essential oil
There are some materials that, when you smell them in high levels of purity in a composition, have the power to move you to the very core, and rose is one of these. Most people feel an emotional connection to the smell of a rose, with memories of garden walks, a childhood toiletry, or a beloved relative’s rose garden coming to mind straight away. This reaction is evoked by a certain type of ‘English garden’ rose, which invariably smells dewy, as if freshly torn from its stem by a storm, its tightly furled center yielding its secret, familiar scent.
Russian Centifolia is an essential oil drawn from the cabbage rose, a blowsy, old-fashioned rose that whose scent many associate with the rose of their memories. It is not spicy, but green, full-bodied, and lusciously rosy in a lacy kind of way. Splutters of sourness stain the pink velvet but far from interfering with this oil’s serene beauty, they add to its sense of authenticity. The oil slowly becomes spicier, darker, and takes on a musky tinge that runs close to animalic. This is not an attar or a mukhallat. However, its aroma is so rich and multifaceted that I include it in the hope that people buy it and wear it for its simple, evocative beauty.
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, Al Rehab, Nemat, Ajmal, Arabian Oud, Mr. Perfume, and Bruno Acampora. The samples from Sultan Pasha, April Aromatics, Rising Phoenix Perfumery, and Abdul Samad al Qurashi were sent to me free of charge either by the brand or a distributor. Samples from Henry Jacques were sent to me by Basenotes friends in sample passes.
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.
