Continuing the Resin Review section of the Attar Guide with everything falling between B and I. But before you dive in, in case you missed it, why not have a glance at this brief primer on all things resiny here? It gives you the lowdown on the differences between myrrh and sweet myrrh (opoponax), what benzoin smells like, and the intricacies of the kingliest resin of them all, frankincense. It also explains what amber is, exactly.
Basilica (Solstice Scents)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Rich labdanum absolute paired with effervescent frankincense, polished rosewood, dark myrrh, exotic woods and a waft of heavenly sweet and rich vanilla absolute and fragrant ashes.
I highly recommend Basilica as a starting point for anyone interested in the incense genre. Featuring a friendly, sweet labdanum coupled with smoky myrrh and frankincense, this blend smells purely of High Mass. It is not complicated or indeed complex, but its straightforwardness is part of its charm. In particular, the naturalness of the frankincense note – lemony, pine-like, crisp, and smoky – makes this an absolute pleasure. Soft and soulful, Basilica is basically Avignon (Comme des Garcons) in oil form, a scent so evocative of Catholic rituals that it should come with a trigger warning.
Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash
Balsamo della Mecca (Mecca Balsam) (La Via del Profumo/ Abdes Salaam Attar)
Type: mukhallat
Although the crepuscular darkness of the resins is essentially the same from eau de parfum to attar, Balsamo della Mecca attar has a very different texture, and therefore a completely different feel. Whereas the original is so dry that it threatens to ignite on the skin at any moment, the attar (mukhallat really) is a concentrated tar, like molasses seeping from a rusty pipe. Dense, sticky fir balsam, myrrh, frankincense, cade, and who knows what else, all boiled down to a medicinal salve one might rub onto an infection. Despite its opacity, it feels excoriating and purifying.
The labdanum is downplayed in the oil version, allowing the rubbery, fungal saltiness of myrrh to take the spotlight. By corollary, the eau de parfum is dustier and sweeter, thick with labdanum. Given its greater diffusiveness, the eau de parfum has a spiritual, if not ecclesiastical, feel; the mukhallat, on the other hand, feels gothic and a little bit sinister. Put it this way – I would wear the eau de parfum to Midnight Mass, and the oil to an exorcism.
I own the eau de parfum but prefer the mukhallat. It has something of the leathery darkness of Tauer’s L’Oudh but is denser, blacker, and more boiled in texture. (Balsamo della Mecca mukhallat is also completely natural in feel while Tauer’s L’Oudh has a smoky industrial aromachemical undertone in the late drydown).
Boukhour Blend (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)
Type: mukhallat
Boukhour, or barkhour as it is sometimes spelled, is a mixture of wood chips or briquettes soaked in essential oils, resins, and other fragrant materials designed to be burned over hot charcoal disks in burners to scent the home, clothes, and hair with its thick, perfumed smoke. Muslims also burn boukhour chips to ‘seal in’ perfume oils they have applied on their skin, hair, or robes. This is a lovely and evocative idea – after all, the original meaning of the word ‘perfume’ is per fumus in Latin, or ‘through the smoke’.
Correspondingly, Boukhour Blend is a perfume oil designed to be rubbed through your hair, onto your clothes, and even ‘baked in’ using the smoke from boukhour chips (hence the name). The opening is a maelstrom of candied white flowers, featuring the standard ASAQ gummy-sweet blend of orange blossom, jasmine, and wildflowers that turns up in other blends. The opening is so intensely syrupy that I feel a tooth cavity coming on.
A generic building block base of amber, wood, and musk has been shoe-horned in to hold up the unctuous mass of honeyed white flowers, but doesn’t really do anything beyond sitting there, looking pretty in a non-descript way. It smells exotic and resinous in the slightly faceless way of those cheap blocks of foil-wrapped barkhour one can pick up in any Asian grocery.
Can you tell just how under-enthused I am? Boukhour Blend is not bad, per se, but it is sorely lacking the interesting smokiness you get when burning real barkhour. If you love Candy by Prada or Amor Amor by Cacherel and want something similar in oil form, then this should suffice. For everyone else – you can safely skip it.
Boukhour Blend Supreme (Abdul Samad al Qurashi)
Type: mukhallat
Practically identical to the regular Boukhour Blend described above, and indeed, it is likely that they are the one and the same, albeit with a bit of up-selling on the name. To my nose, there is a slightly higher concentration of the very sweet, gummy white flowers in the Supreme version, taking it to an outrageous level of bubblegum-like sweetness that sets my teeth on edge.
Photo by Hannah Troupe on Unsplash
The Cat (BPAL)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Sleek, black, dark, and clever: benzoin, honey, cedar, and dark musk.
The Cat smells of fruity honey poured over cedar sap and powdery benzoin, its edges diffused and feathered by a cottony musk. The first impression is of maple syrup seeping from a tree, its lurid sweetness balanced nicely by resinous sap and the vinegary sharpness of the cedarwood, lending it a pickled flavor that pricks the taste buds. The latter stages are packed full of powdery musks with hints of earth and funk.
Overall, The Cat’s forceful essay on pungent honey, resin, vinegary woods, and sweet, powdery musks is a clever balancing act that works well on the skin. It is worth mentioning that even if you do not typically like BPAL’s honey note, The Cat should be on your radar, because the honey here is dark and pine resin-like rather than candy-sweet.
Chypre Profund (Mellifluence)
Type: mukhallat
Let us dispense with the pleasantries – Chypre Profund does not smell like a chypre. What it does smell like, however, is the twenty-year-old Cretan labdanum oil that Mellifluence used to stock, which was deliciously thick, leathery, animalic, and possessed of a salted caramel depth of flavor that never got old. It is this, and not oakmoss, that is the pillar upon which Chypre Profund is constructed.
It is tough to do a chypre these days. It is especially difficult if you are a self-taught attar maker with limited access to raw materials and a tendency to ‘feel your way’ through the process of making perfume rather than taking a more formal study track. However, if you are a small-batch attar maker and have access to oakmoss absolute and are not bound by IFRA anyway, then why not throw caution to the wind and use oakmoss in quantities that actually show up? If I were Mellifluence, I would take this back to the drawing board and double down on the oakmoss.
And while I am making presumptuous suggestions, I would like to urge the addition of the other component of a chypre, i.e., bergamot. Chypre Profund smells good largely because it features a great labdanum material. The tarry aspects of labdanum have been accentuated by a chorus of earthy, dusty notes to create body and interest. But in terms of structure, it lacks both the brightness of bergamot up top and the bitterness of oakmoss down below that would qualify it as chypre.
As it stands, Chypre Profund is a nice essay on the complexity of labdanum, but there is no getting around the fact that the traditionally three-legged stool of a chypre construction (bergamot-labdanum-oakmoss) is missing two of its three legs and is therefore useless for sitting on.
Conjure Dark (Solstice Scents)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Amber, Frankincense, Sweet Incense Smoke, Dried Rose Petals, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Woods, Oud, Vanilla
Conjure Dark mixes the musty gloom of a church cellar with the powdered sweetness of cheap Indian rose incense sticks for a result that smells unexpectedly animalic, like beeswax mixed with the odor of someone who hasn’t washed for a long, long time. Conjure Dark conjures (sorry) an image of crouching down behind old wooden crates in a church cellar, watching a secret burial ceremony, the scent of centuries-old neglect mingling with the lingering aromas of candle wax and communion wafers.
Vetiver, rose, beeswax, and cold, unburned frankincense are the notes that dominate here. There is a gorgeously stale, almost bready air to Conjure Dark. If you like the idea of incense resin mixed with the aura of damp books and New Age shops, then Conjure Dark will be right up your alley. Trippy but wonderful stuff. I own a bottle.
Photo by Kier In Sight on Unsplash
Dukhan (Mellifluence)
Type: mukhallat
Dukhan refers to a Sudanese purification treatment – usually reserved for women – involving the immersion of one’s body in the smoke from a fire of exotic incense and aromatic woods. But Dukhan leans hard on the fire part of the ritual and barely touches upon the medicinal. This is basically what a library would smell like if set on fire.
Thankfully the smoke is never allowed to overwhelm. I appreciate the restraint employed here, because smoky materials such as cade, labdanum, birch tar, tobacco, and so on, have the tendency to drown out the quieter sounds made by the other notes.
Dukhan opens on a smoky vetiver note that feels as purely resinous as Hojari frankincense, before sliding into a rich tobacco and leather tandem that forms the hardest-working muscle in the scent. Underneath this, a rubbery tar note lends the tobacco and leather some chew. No sweetness, though. Dukhan is as sinewy as the legs of a professional cyclist after the last Pyrenean mountain stage of the Tour de France.
Overall, Dukhan smells comfortingly masculine, like burying your nose into the well-worn leather jacket of someone who smokes a pipe and has recently nibbled on a piece of frankincense gum. The leather and tobacco are supple, almost buttery, and despite the underlying charcoal smoke, a microcosm, in scent form, of the pipe-and-slipper rituals of a gentleman.
I recommend Dukhan to anyone looking for a resinous leather-tobacco masculine that doesn’t excoriate your nasal cavities with billowing gusts of BBQ smoke. Picture a toned-down, more wearable Hyde (Hiram Green) or T-Rex (Zoologist) and you have the right idea.
L’Encens à la Vanille (Alkemia)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Madagascar Vanilla, golden amber, and resinous incense swirled together with a selection of beautifully aged incense woods and a dusting of aphrodisiac Silk Road spices. Intensely sexy in a mysterious kind of way…
L’Encens à la Vanille belies its attractive description by slicing an intensely metallic incense note through a doughy, sullen vanilla, and then pretty much dropping the mic. The advertized Silk Road spices boil down to the single note of clove, a representation so medicinal it smells spoiled, like dried milk or blood. It eventually settles into a nice, bubblegum-like mélange of woods and amber that fails to atone for the trauma of the first hour.
Enheduanna (Alkemia)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: A dark and sultry incantation of seven ancient temple offerings: Zanzibar clove, oakmoss, aged frankincenses, champa blossom, Madagascar vanilla, iron-distilled patchouli, and dark amber.
Enheduanna smells just like the inside of a head shop, i.e., unlit nag champa sticks, amber cubes, and dusty spices. Now, there are perfumes that do a really good job of nailing the atmosphere of one of these places without getting too literal about it (Sikkim Girls by Lush and Le Maroc Pour Elle by Andy Tauer, for example), but Enheduanna is not one of them. It is too straight-forwardly headshoppy to be elegant or interesting. There are much better variations on the theme out there.
Enigma Intense (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
Holy smokes, batman! Lovers of fragrances such as Slumberhouse Jeke, Naomi Goodsir’s Bois d’Ascèse, and Le Labo Patchouli 24, please welcome your newest member to the inner circle! Citrus and lavender offer a glimpse of sunlight before it is whisked away almost immediately, and the wearer plunged deep inside a smokehouse where a leather jacket has just been thrown onto the open fire.
Birch tar is the note that dominates with its fiercely rubbery smoke, but cedar, aged vetiver, Siam benzoin, and copaiba also add to the somber atmosphere. A salty, ashy guaiacol note emerges from the fire, and somewhere in the distance, someone is dry-roasting cardamom, cumin, and caraway seeds on a hot pan. The mouth waters, and so do the eyes. The drydown is warmly ambery without once straying into sweetness.
Eve (Possets)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Eve is a heavy oriental, resplendent with musks, earthy sweetnesses [sic], lingering and sexy as only that first lady could have been. This is a complex blend, profound even, but still there is a sparkle to it which marks it as a Posset.
Unfortunately, my sample had turned by the time I got to it (to be fair to Possets, it was a full year later). By then, all I could smell rancid carrier oil.
Photo by Stephen Frank on Unsplash
fallintostars (Strangelove NYC)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
fallintostars by Strangelove NYC is clever because it pairs the 15th century smell of Hindi oud – the dank, rotting, wet wood smell of animal hides piled high in a medieval dungeon – with the 21st century radiance of a modern amber. For the first half hour, the dissonance is dizzying. The oud is so authentically filthy that you feel like you’re being pressed up against a wall by an lout with a shiv and bad intentions. It is as funky as a plate of fruit and cheese furred over with mold, wrapped in a length of freshly-tanned leather, and buried in a pile of steaming, matted straw.
But just when you fear you are slipping wholesale into slurry, you notice the bright, peppery overlay of something radiant and electric, like sparks popping off a shorted wire. This accord calls to mind the aromachemically fresh, smoky black tea opening of Russian Tea (Masque Milano Fragranze) more than the pink pepper the notes tell me this is likely to be. The distance between the light and the dark is perfectly judged. It is more of a whoosh than a lift.
But wait, because we haven’t really talked about the amber yet. Poor Christophe Laudamiel – I bet that after the category-defining glory that is Amber Absolute (Tom Ford) he is afraid to touch labdanum for fear of either never reaching those heights again or being accused of repeating himself. Therefore, no, this is not the benzoin-thickened incense amber of Amber Absolute, but (unexpectedly) the bright, hard sparkle of a champagne-and-vodka amber in the style of pre-reform Ambre Russe (Parfum d’Empire). Like a shot of those clear gold liquors served in the Alps after dinner, it smells so cleansing that I am not sure whether to drink it or apply it to a wound.
My nose fails me when it comes to the other notes. I don’t get any of the green, hay-like barnyardiness of narcissus (unless it is giving the dirty straw notes in the Hindi oud some welly) or indeed any of the gentler, more jasmine-like nuances of the jonquil variety, and there is nary a hint of rose. I don’t perceive the benzoin at all, which is strange because even if I can’t smell it, I can usually feel it thickening the texture of the basenotes into a flurry of papery dust.
What I smell in fallintostars is really an act in three parts: Hindi oud, followed by champagne-and-vodka amber, and finally a huge honking myrrh not listed anywhere. Of course, it is entirely possible that Christophe has managed to work the inky, astringent tones of saffron and hina attar (henna) with his feverish fingers into the shape of a rubbery, mushroomy myrrh. It is also possible that it is just myrrh.
Anyway, what I like about this perfume is that it transcends its raw materials to make you think about the way it is composed. The modern, near slavish adoration at the foot of complex-smelling naturals such as Hindi oud or rose or labdanum often results in muddy, brown-tinged accords that speak more to their own worthiness than to joy, especially in the indie sector. In fallintostars, Christophe Laudamiel takes heavy hitters like Hindi oud and makes it smell like bottled fireflies. And that is alchemy, pure and simple.
FBI.17 (Abdul Karim Al Faransi)
Type: mukhallat
The name stands for Fabulous Blend from India, the 2017 edition. It features a dark-ish musk with the faint twang of urinal cakes over tobacco, labdanum, and oud. Thankfully, the musk is not so shriekingly animalic that you have to hide indoors until it fades. Its funkiness is soft and velvety, with only the subtlest of bathroom nuances.
If this was all there was to it, FBI.17 would be a nice but boring iteration on the Arabian ‘black musk’ theme, but it has a trick or two up its sleeve. The perfume releases its tight musky fist quite suddenly, swiveling into a complex, ashy tobacco accord, which in turn melts into a buttery, incensey labdanum drydown that will appeal to fans of the tobacco-labdanum-heavy Ambre Loup by Rania J.
There is no vanilla or benzoin to act as the transition shade, so the blend leans on the complexity of labdanum to do all the heavy-lifting. There is a marked similarity between this and the drydown of Amber Ash Sheikh, but the base of FBI.17 is even more unctuously buttery. My nose fails to pick out any oud in this blend at all, but to be fair, I don’t particularly miss it. If you want a cost-effective alternative to Ambre Loup, FBI.17 might be a contender.
Photo by Stephen Frank on Unsplash
Geisha Amber Rouge (Aroma M)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Geisha Amber Rouge is – or was – a limited edition version of Geisha Rouge. But to say that Geisha Amber Rouge simply adds amber to the Geisha Rouge formula is inaccurate. Geisha Amber Rouge opens with hot clove and an accord that smells very much like rooibos tea that’s been brewed for a long time and allowed to grow cold. The red tea notes smell tannic, with hints of dried currants, star anise, and rose petals stirring beneath. Those familiar with the original Comme des Garcons Parfum and Costes No. 1 will appreciate the translucent ‘pink-red’ sourness of this accord.
The amber itself only shifts into view when smelled directly side by side with its parent scent, Geisha Rouge. When the nose returns to Geisha Amber Rouge after smelling the original, the resiny thickness of the amber accord suddenly ‘pops’, making you wonder how you missed it in the first place.
But the amber does not cloud the clarity of the red tea notes at all. It simply adds a certain louche, dank sexiness that makes me think of women lolling around in half-open kimonos, unwashed and unshaved. All in all, this is an admirably cool-headed spicy amber with a rooibos undertone that tea lovers will appreciate.
Geisha Noire (Aroma M)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Aroma M made its reputation on Geisha Noire, and it is easy to see why. The secret to Geisha Noire is that it gets better the longer you wear it, making it the inverse of most modern fragrances, which hit you with all the glory in the first hour or so but peter out by the time you get home and unbox your new purchase. Thankfully, because Aroma M perfumes are not sold in department stores, there is no urgency to sell you on its topnotes. Most Aroma M perfumes, therefore, take their time to hit their stride.
And true to form, Geisha Noire is a perfume that demands you wait a little for your satisfaction. The topnotes are bright but leaden, an undissolved lump of golden resin that hisses on the skin like a scalded cat. The resin accord is piercingly sharp, like lemon rind without any citrus high notes, reminding me a bit of elemi resin. There is also a sherbety, turbo-charged fizz to the texture that smells the way Refresher bars taste. Not a bad smell, you understand – just massively unrefined.
But give Geisha Noire the courtesy of wearing it for a full day and a strange thing happens. The lump of resin begins to dissolve, liquefying into distinct pools of amber, creamy sandalwood, tonka, and salty ambergris. It smells like antique gold velvet, its flavor miles deep and radiating in every direction. It is also an intensely powdery scent, connecting it to its progenitor Shalimar in firm brushstrokes that might not agree with everyone. But what makes Geisha Noire special, and what marks it out as more than just another Shalimar clone, is its balance between burned sugar and salty driftwood (ambergris).
Geisha Noire is at its very best at the end of the day when its salty-sweet amber has melted into the heat of your skin, forming a veritable forcefield of radiant, gold-tipped sweetness. A true my-skin-but-better kind of scent.
Holy Terror (Arcana)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: There are utterly somber and fearsome spirits which are known to haunt certain long-deserted chapels, monasteries and abbeys. An unsettling, austere blend of burning frankincense, sandalwood, deep myrrh, and dusty beeswax candles.
Holy Terror is the star of the Arcana line-up. Despite the mention of words such as ‘unsettling’ and ‘austere’ in the product description, Holy Terror is actually a super friendly affair of resin and musk, thickened with beeswax and a creamy woodsmoke accord.
The myrrh and frankincense in this blend appear as a vague, blurred ‘resinousness’ rather than as accurate representations of their natural selves. So, for example, there is none of the lemony pine-like facets that identify a resin as frankincense, and none of the earthy-anisic-mushroomy aspects that point to myrrh. Instead, the resins here create a generalized feeling of incense rather than one resin in particular. Indeed, they smell more like wax and woodsmoke than a balsam.
To point out that Holy Terror smells more resin-like or ‘generically resinous’ is, by the way, not a criticism but an observation. Some people blind buy incense or resin scents because they are trying to find something that accurately represents the aroma of a specific resin, like, for example, unlit frankincense, oud wood (rather than the oil), myrrh, or copal. Incense freaks tend to be very specific about the effect they are looking for. Therefore, my note about the nature of the resins in Holy Terror is simply for clarification.
Holy Terror is more about the homely smell of incense-scented things than High Mass. It is not dark or massively smoky or acrid. It is not a literal incense or burning resin scent like Avignon (Comme des Garcons). It is sweet herbs, tree sap, and woodsmoke wrapped in a just-snuffed-out candlewax accord. It is slightly musky, which creates a tinge of intimacy, like the skin of someone pressing close to you in church. This gives the scent a human aura that is enormously inviting.
HopHead (Possets)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Very nervous people love this blend, it calms you down but leaves you very mellow. Coffee in its most perfectly beautiful form is dropped into 5 ambers which range from sweet to dry. Somehow this combination just makes me want to have a nosegasm. Gourmandy and very bea-utiful [sic].
HopHead is the coffee opening of The Seductive Jesuit draped over a sugary amber accord. Is it the five different ambers as promised by the description? Nope. Just one – a bog-standard indie amber, which is to say sweet, vegetal, and hippyish.
Incense Oud (Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics)
Type: dupe, concentrated perfume oil
The incense note in the dupe is a hair soapier, but in general, this is a close match for By Kilian’s Incense Oud. The original fragrance is a subdued, natural-smelling incense scent, backed by soft green woods, powder, and a hint of smoke. Structurally, the By Kilian is sparse to the point of austerity but rose adds a subtle flush of warmth where needed.
Admittedly, the dupe does not have the same strong rose presence as the original, and its sparkly, dusty texture is more Pez than frankincense. But it completely nails the tranquil, meditative air of the original. With dupes, sometimes it is more important that the general atmosphere of the original is captured, rather than a precise note-by-note breakdown. This is a great example of that.
Photo by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash
Incense Royale (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
Not all incense scents are alike, a fact that Incense Royale illustrates by mixing some of the resins used in the dark, tarry Pure Incense with vanilla and some of the lighter, sweeter resins such as benzoin, elemi, and opoponax to arrive at an incense fragrance that is a complete 180 degrees from Pure Incense.
In comparison to its muscular big brother, Incense Royale floats in on a big powdery, vanillic cloud of scent with hints of cinnamon, lemon, lavender, red berries, and rose – all facets naturally present in the resins and oud used rather than the inclusion of any floral absolutes. A fat cushion of benzoin and vanilla adds a plush, pillowy texture that makes the incense feels luxe and pampered rather than churchy or severe.
There is a faint, sour streak in the woody backdrop that comes from the aged Hindi oud used for Incense Royale, but in general, the oud is not especially prominent. Rather, it sings a low brown note in unison with the other woody notes. Sweet, powdery, faintly resinous, and woody, Incense Royale could be a sort of Ambre 114 flushed with silvery bits of oud. The structure is flooded with citric brightness, perhaps due to the pine and lime peel facets of frankincense, or the creamy, lemony side of elemi resin.
Either way, the diffuse sweetness of the blend feels like it sits at opposite ends to the dark, sticky pungency of Pure Incense. Pure Incense is compacted resin, dark and prune-like, while Incense Royale has light and air and the birds and the bees. Choose according to personal preference, but both are excellent. For ease of comparison, Incense Royale has a very similar feel to softly powdered, sweet incense compositions such as Creed’s Angelique Encens and Guerlain’s Bois d’Armenie. It also shares an airy, woody-aromatic sweetness with Ambre 114.
Incensum (Solstice Scents)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Amber, Frankincense, Palo Santo, Myrrh, Spices, Attars, Oud, Vetiver & more
Incensum is one of the brand’s premium blends, meaning that it is one hundred percent natural, and made with a mixture of attars and essential oils rather than with synthetics. The all-natural nature of this composition bears out in both its quality and in its flat and somewhat muddy feel.
Incensum seems to be structured around a clutch of opposing materials – a cluster of smoky, green, and ‘bitter’ elements such as vetiver, palo santo (guaiac wood), and frankincense on one side, and a grouping of earthy ‘brown’ notes such as oud oil and myrrh on the other. Incensum starts out in a very earnest tone, dominated by sourish wood and resin. But then the oud note drops out of the picture entirely, leaving the balance hanging askew.
Incensum is limited in its movement by the upper limits of its natural raw materials. It morphs very slowly from smoky green wood to earthy, anisic myrrh over the course of a wear. There is a certain rawness (or perhaps sharpness) to the perfume that I like very much. However, demonstrating that a negative reaction can be caused as much by naturals as by synthetic, Incensum gives me a howling headache every time I wear it.
Inferno (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
Inferno is a potent tobacco and resin bomb presaged by a piercing lime note that runs acrid on my skin. The opening is arresting, with a brief coca cola note leading into a blackstrap molasses note, like prune juice boiled down to a thimbleful of liquid. However, the main character of the mukhallat lies in the interaction between that lime peel topnote with the aromatics, musk, and tobacco in the heart, a combination that draws an unfortunate association with citrus-scented floor disinfectants. Underneath the lime-musk disinfectant note, there lies a very good, smoky tobacco accord, as dry and as husky as a thick book left to smolder in the ashes of a campfire.
People who are fond of well-done animalics should seek out a sample of Inferno, as it features significant amounts of hyraceum, castoreum, musk, ambergris, and civet, as well as a touch of Hindi oud, but is blended expertly so as to lend the attar a dark, sultry growl rather than an all-out, high-pitched animal shriek. As the astringent lime-musk combo dies out, the wonderfully dry, smoky smell of the resins, animalics, and woods lingers for hours. In fact, the drydown of Inferno is my favorite of all Sultan Pasha’s blends (excepting Aurum D’Angkhor). I just can’t take the first half.
Inquisitor (Solstice Scents)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: A Dark Resinous Blend of Myrrh, Labdanum, Beeswax Absolute, Frankincense, Amber, Leather & Fire
Every now and then, you want to smell like the Second Coming. A bit churchy, a bit gothic, a bit Mordor? Yeah, I hear you. Forget Avignon (Comme des Garcons), Casbah (Robert Piguet), and Full Incense (Montale) – Inquisitor by Solstice Scents gets you there for about eighteen dollars. Featuring a raw, chlorine-dipped leather over a pile of smoking resins, Inquisitor makes a lunge for your throat and doesn’t let go.
It is weirdly sexy. The drydown, thick with vanillic resins like benzoin and labdanum, is slightly creamier, but the perfume never really strays too far from its dominatrix-meets-smoking-censer theme. More gothic than churchy, Inquisitor is perhaps the choice for apostates. If you are a true believer, I would instead recommend the wonderful Basilica by the same brand – a quiet, simple Avignon-lite number that scratches the ecclesiastical itch to perfection.
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 my samples of Arcana, Maison Anthony Marmin, BPAL, Mellifluence, Possets, Solstice Scents, Aroma M, Alkemia, and Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics. My samples of oils from Abdes Salaam Attar, Abdul Samad al Qurashi, and Sultan Pasha Attars were sent to me by the brands or a distributor. My sample of Strangelove NYC fallintostars was courtesy of Luckyscent, provided for copywriting purposes.
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: Photo by Chinh Le Duc on Unsplash