For a brief introduction to everything earthy, herbal, spicy or aromatic in attar, mukhallat and concentrated oil perfumery, see a handy primer here. Now on to the reviews!
Dakkar (Al Rehab)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
This smells like a more concentrated, mossier version of the Dakkar Noir currently on the shelves, thus making it perfect for men pining for it as it once was. My cousin used to joke with me that his Dakkar Noir would put hairs on my chest. Smelling this makes me a believer. Absolutely terrifying.
Dee (BPAL)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Soft English leather, rosewood and tonka with a hint of incense, parchment and soft woods.
Yet another superbly evocative scent from BPAL. Starting out with a raspy ‘male aftershave’ note that reminds me of Brut, Dee soon softens into a smoky vetiver masquerading as kid leather. The rosewood note, authentically sour and rosy, adds body to the leather accord. Dee grows sweeter and creamier once the tonka bean kicks in, the raw-silk heft of this material smoothing out the woodier edges of the vetiver.
Not enough is written about the value of ‘mustiness’ in fragrances: it is a quality that, for me, defines the peculiar appeal of both Onda (Vero Profumo) and Djedi (Guerlain). Dee is a great example of why mustiness works. One sniff and an entire library, complete with decaying paper and glue bindings, suddenly springs to life.
Mingling with the alluring whiff of a man’s well-worn leather jacket and cheap aftershave, this deeply atmospheric smell reminds us why American indie oils are so eternally popular – they unlock a secret trapdoor to the virtual world we once built in our heads but either abandoned or forgot. Dee is the scent of learning, decrepitude, and long-ago love affairs all swirled into one.
Denali (Mellifluence)
Type: mukhallat
Denali opens with the green nutmeat of vetiver framed against a backdrop of dusty, aged wood. These alluring hints of grass clippings and woodcutter’s shed fade away quietly, giving room to a juicy green leaf aroma that blooms suddenly at the heart of the scent. Pops of dark, tart forest berries appear here and there through the waxy green leaf accord, making the wearer feel as if they are walking through a forest after a storm. The smell of wet earth and torn greenery is intoxicating. It feels flooded with ozone.
The greenness of the aura is vivid and exciting: Denali exhibits the same Technicolor effect that comes out in Mellifluence attars whenever its creator works with vetiver and green Borneo-style oud oils. Unfortunately, as is common in more naturally-composed blends, and especially those by Mellifluence, the initial effect does not last very long. Here it fades and sheds color before finally settling on a nice but unexciting woody base with a smoky, ambery tinge.
Diaghilev (Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics)
Type: dupe, concentrated perfume oil
I ordered this dupe oil with the (rather unfair) intention of using it to illustrate the pitfalls of trying to dupe extremely complex perfumes, the pinnacle of which might very well be Roja Dove’s Diaghilev – regarded by many to be equal in construction to Guerlain’s Mitsouko, the fragrance it most closely resembles.
But the egg is on my face, because, at least in the first few minutes, there is little difference between them. The dupe apes, with uncanny exactitude, the creamy oakmoss and bright, tart bergamot opening of the original. Both are spiked with enough cumin and civet to produce that sensual skin note that makes Diaghilev warmer and more human, somehow, than Mitsouko.
My nose, alternating between the original on one hand and the dupe on the other, fails to pick up anything that separates one from the other. For those first thrilling minutes, my heart is pounding with the possibility that I have stumbled upon a viable (and cheap) alternative to one of the most expensive perfumes on the planet.
You can almost see the ending coming, can’t you? Yep, within minutes, the dupe leaves the orbit of the original, developing a sharply pitched citrus-pine note that smells like toilet cleaning fluid, while the original goes on to develop a core of silky, powdery floral notes such as ylang, peach, and rose. The original is creamier, more velvety, and more softly musky, whereas the dupe remains sharply mossy-citrusy, with a sour pungency that proves difficult to shake off.
Do bear in mind, however, that this key difference emerges only when you wear both the original and the dupe in a side-by-side, real-time wearing. The dupe performs almost exactly like the original when worn alone (and actually, this is something that may be said for dupes in general). If you prefer not to have the illusion punctured, as ever, simply avoid ever wearing the original to compare the two.
Both the dupe and the original dry down to a matte, smoky marine ink note, which in the original is clearly oakmoss, and in the dupe is mostly vetiver (a long-stewed-greens variant that mimics oakmoss in all but its skankier, creamier facets). Despite the slight differences in the texture of the mossy base, however, the drydown is where the two fragrances – the original and the dupe – converge once again.
Overall, this is a more than decent dupe for Diaghilev, with the proviso that you don’t actually wear it side by side with the real thing. Of course, for many of us, especially those with regular-sized wallets, that should not be a problem.
Eau du Soir (Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics)
Type: dupe, concentrated perfume oil
Eau du Soir by Sisley is a green chypre perched between the chic formality of Chanel No. 19 and the rootiness of Scherrer I. Decorated with a fruity ylang note in the heart and a ton of powdery musks in the drydown, it feels both dressed-up and sexy in a blousy, slightly overblown manner. It possesses a sudsy aura akin to steam escaping from a lady’s bathroom who has been vigorously bathing with Amouage Gold Woman soap. It is very eighties in feel.
Eau du Soir is as pretentiously priced as Sisley’s skincare, which says more about the brand’s targeting of professional women who equate price with value than it does to the intrinsic quality of its raw materials. The price certainly has little to do with any oakmoss it may or may not contain, since the modern formula barely contains any. Still, Eau du Soir has a committed fan base, and that, coupled with its high price, makes it a prime candidate for duping.
Unfortunately, this particular Eau du Soir dupe fails miserably. Dupes often stumble when complex accords like a chypre accord are attempted, because one needs to have all three legs of the chypre stool (moss, labdanum, bergamot) in place before the scent starts to smell like one. Here, the mossy bitterness of the original has been substituted by a greasy-smelling patchouli and the bergamot by a sharp lime note that smells like bathroom cleaner. In other words, this particular chypre stool is very wobbly indeed. The original, like it or not, smells like a proper chypre. The dupe does not. If you are a chypre lover, then you’ll probably stop reading here. I don’t blame you.
Even though Eau du Soir itself doesn’t smell nearly as expensive as its price tag suggests (being possessed of a pungent, plasticky fruit note that smells like peach shampoo), the dupe smells distinctly bottom-of-the-barrel in direct comparison. There is nothing pleasant about its sharp hotel soap notes or jarring citrus cleaner overlay. If you love Eau de Soir, then swallow your pride and save your pennies for the real thing.
Egyptian Oasis (NAVA)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Earth, Cedar, Desert Rose, Neroli, Osmanthus, Indian Patchouli, Egyptian Desert Sand
A puzzling experience. In a brand dedicated to ancient Egypt, one imagines that Egyptian Oasis would espouse everything the brand stood for – a sort of scented talisman for the entire line. But if this scent encapsulates what NAVA thinks ancient Egypt smells like, then I am genuinely at a loss. Because this perfume smells of little else other than dust. And not even wood dust, which is at least identifiable as such, but more along the lines of radiator dust, or the dust in a closed-up school room.
The notes cite earth and desert sand. Dried up soil is surely part of the dust bowl effect. But there is nothing exotic, sand-like, or Egyptian about this dust – no redeeming spice, warmth, sweetness, no oud with which to lift the gloomy brownness of the accord. It is simply dust, of the sort one sweeps out from underneath one’s sofa.
Encens Chypre (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
Encens Chypre is a formidably bitter, green chypre with a pungent oakmoss absolute that dominates the blend from its fresh, herbal top to its smoky, ambery incense base. First off, there is a whoosh of sour bergamot, lemony elemi resin, and a mix of aromatics, underscored by a streak of bitter, inky oakmoss. The bergamot is dry but rounded by a touch of something lightly peachy. The aromatics in the opening are themselves naturally bitter, with artemisia and clary sage providing a dark green herbal tone that sings in the same register as the oakmoss. At this stage, Encens Chypre reads as very masculine, its mossy timbre far more reminiscent of a traditional fougère than a chypre.
The second stage is a more floral heart, with hints of jasmine, iris, and rose unfolding shyly, but still nestled deep within the forest-like greenness of the oakmoss and aromatics. Ultimately, though, the puny floral notes stand no chance against the dark green, mossy override of that oakmoss.
The third and final stage is stunning, a brew of incense resins and balsams replacing the usual labdanum or patchouli for a fantastically dry, smoky flourish at the end. An extremely well-done mossy chypre, Encens Chypre raises the middle finger to IFRA so openly that it makes me wonder if it is entirely legal.
Encore Une Noir (Duftkumpels)
Type: mukhallat
Supposedly composed before the attar maker had laid his nose on Lalique’s Encre Noir, Encore Une Noir is so-named because of the similarities he spotted between his own blend and the Lalique after he had finally smelled it. It contains three types of vetiver oil, two of which are vintage oils aged seventeen years or more.
To my nose, however, Encore Une Noir attar does not smell as crisp or as clean as Encre Noir. In fact, it smells rather musty and stale, like clods of wet grey clay taken out of a bog and left to dry until cracked in the sun, the memory of salt marsh and unclean water still clinging to their surface. There is zero smoke and zero greenness with which to relieve the central mustiness of the accord. Eventually, the sweet earthiness of aged patchouli strengthens to the point where it masks some of the more unattractive qualities of the vetiver oils. Honestly? Stick to the Lalique.
Et Pourtant (Henry Jacques)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Et Pourtant, clearly masculine, opens with a blast of the kind of citrus and herbs one finds in old-fashioned eaux de cologne – lavender and lime, but also the urinous, grey-green strangeness of clary sage. This particular combination of aromatics smells clean in a very French way, but also slightly rank (again, in a very French way).
Benzoin, tucked away in the base, turns the leather into the tight, citrusy powder of Eau Sauvage. But the mossy petrol vibe of vintage Fahrenheit also haunts the composition, glossing the molecules with the bluebottle sheen of violet leaf. In general, though, Et Pourtant is more Imperial Leather than petrol station forecourt. I’d recommend this handsome scent for the wet shavers and traditionalist male groomers.
Floozy (Arcana)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Silky opium smoked with boozy amber, dark vanilla, and sandalwood.
Floozy defies its rather exotic description by pairing a vinegary Australian sandalwood with light amber and something starchy, like freshly-ironed linens. The astringency of the blend is startling, calling to mind as it does a spicy aftershave rather than anything oriental, dark, or sensual. There is also an ocean of squeaky white musk here that, though not listed, plays a large part in keeping Floozy rully, rully soapy.
There is some carnation spiciness too, all dusty and verklempt, which I am assuming is the opium note. Reviews for Floozy always mention how this scent smells like an opium den, which makes me wonder what a Venn diagram of indie perfume oil wearers and opiate users looks like. Working on the assumption that the overlap in said Venn diagram is precisely zero, I took it upon myself to research what real opium smells like.
While I am still slightly traumatized by the dark corners of Reddit stumbled upon in my research (especially by a thread where the question ‘How do I take heroin safely’ received thirty-nine earnest answers), I can now report that real opium smells sticky, sweet, and floral. It is a rich, focused smell, like a dried-up poppy, but not particularly – as is commonly ascribed to the word in perfume reviews – spicy or smoky. In other words, the peppery carnation or clove notes largely taken as shorthand for opium in perfumery are all wrong. (Someone ought to tell the execs at Yves Saint Laurent).
So, there you have it. Floozy is less the opiate-taking hedonist of its own imagining and more a dusty, floral carnation affair (with a sudsy sandalwood chaser). For what it is worth, Floozy is a very good indie rendition of Opium by Yves Saint Laurent, which, in its original version, was a soapy sandalwood perfume with a massively dry carnation note running through it. Floozy is, of course, a far less ornate scent. But its very lack of fussiness is what makes it such an attractive alternative.
La Fougre / Fougère du Paradis (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
La Fougre, or Fougère du Paradis as it is now known, is an excellent masculine fougère with a smoky, resinous twist. It starts off with a volley of bright, citrusy notes, and some very aromatic lavender and sage notes. Cleverly, elemi resin has been used as a bridge between the opening notes, tying together the lemony, high-C notes of the herbs and citrus fruits.
After a while, the bright citrus and resin notes drop back a bit, allowing a creamy lavender and tonka heart to flesh out. Unusually for a fougère, the base contains smoky, vanillic resins and a creamy white oud instead of oakmoss, so instead of the traditionally bitter, mossy finish, we have something that feels slightly more oriental. The resins provide a sort of bitter nuance that substitutes nicely for oakmoss. A nod in the direction of Jicky, therefore, rather than Azzaro Pour Homme.
This a nice option for young men looking for an updated version of a traditional fougère without the bitter, dated soapy mustiness that characterizes many old school barbershop masculines from the late seventies, or early eighties. This is clean, sharp, and masculine in a pleasing, non-confrontational way.
Geisha Rouge (Aroma M)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Photo by Christina Rumpf on Unsplash
Unlike its flanker, Geisha Amber Rouge, the emphasis of the original Geisha Rouge is on the triumvirate of clove, star anise, and cinnamon commonly used to aromatize fine Japanese incense made with spikenard (jatamansi), powdered kyara (agarwood), and sandalwood. There is also a faint undertone of dry tobacco leaf propping up the spice notes, replacing the sodden rooibos tea leaf of Geisha Amber Rouge.
The strongest note here, though, is the clove. Star anise plays wingman, giving the blend a sweet and savory spice profile. It is not chai, but something altogether rawer, like the hotly-spiced tsubaki oil – a blend of star anise, clove, and camellia oil – used by Samurai to oil their dagger sheathes. A thematic line runs between this and Bushido Attar (Rising Phoenix Perfumery), though the Aroma M smells lighter, blunter, and less natural.
A hint of plasticky red fruit in the drydown adds to that olfactory impression of ‘redness’ the oil is clearly aiming for. Geisha Rouge may be a haiku rather than a novel, but there is something about its peppery freshness that is as attention-grabbing as a red-lipsticked mouth on a bare face.
Haute Love (Possets)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: Ginger, you say you want ginger? Like love it is hot and burns so beautifully! Imagine chocolate covered ginger which is forced to marry a gooey sticky sweet and all-consuming center. It is so clean…it is so very sinful! Haute Love will remind you of that guy you knew who was so polite around your parents but was such a wildman once you left the house. Or was that you, the prim little lady in public, the wildcat in private? That’s Haute Love.
I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that Possets use an oil carrier that goes rancid within a year or so. It is not possible to predict which perfumes will go off quicker than others – some of my Possets samples are still perfectly fine, for example, while three to four of them are clearly rancid. After a brief and very pleasant hit of powdered ginger, Haute Love quickly unravels into the scent of stale vegetable oil, through which has been stirred a tablespoon of chocolate-orange cake flavoring syrup. It is a dusty, cloying smell, and most unfortunate in a perfume.
Hayati (Al Haramain)
Type: mukhallat
There must have been a mistake in filling my sample because whereas the published notes for Hayati uniformly cite musk, amber, agarwood, sugar, rose, and saffron, I smell acid-bright lemon smeared over a sweaty combination of vetiver, pine, and fir balsam. Beneath this rather masculine fougère-ish opening, an unclean musk lurks uncleanly, sharpened with the halitosis stink of black ambergris or civet paste. The marketing blurb mentions nothing of this, so I am putting this down to a sample mix up. Hayati itself sounds like it smells good, but whatever it is that I tested most emphatically does not.
Incendere (Mellifluence)
Type: mukhallat
Incendere means ‘to burn’ in several Romance languages, so I was expecting this to be a very smoky affair. However, while there is some smoke in the opening notes, it is more the pure, green smoke of wet pine needles thrown on a bonfire than the black char of burning meat or ashes. Think the sappy greenness of the fir balsam in Encens Flamboyant (Annick Goutal) rather than the hammy guaiac of Fireside Intense (Sonoma Scent Studio) or the cade-heavy A City on Fire (Imaginary Authors).
This central accord feels invigorating, like walking through a Northern fir forest in the snow and comes across a dying campfire. Sadly, these atmospheric notes do not last, giving way all too rapidly to an ambery drydown marked, as usual, by the caramelic tones of the wonderful twenty-year-old Cretan labdanum absolute used by the brand. Still, not a bad option for hiking and all sorts of wholesome outdoors activities.
Ikigai (Mellifluence)
Type: mukhallat
Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash
In the opening, a rich but weathered, almost crumbling rose breaks ground. Mellifluence’s signature earthy, smoky Sumatran vetiver talks all over the rose. It smells like a length of green velvet brought out of a cedar armoire after half a century of storage.
For those who love the atmospheric smell of decrepitude, Ikigai is a gift – a tug on a memory chord. It smells like a mansion close to ruin, with ghosts of a more splendid past hiding in the corners. The tobacco leaf, which takes a long time to emerge from behind the rose and vetiver curtains, adds to the idea of faded grandeur with its gently dry and ashy tones.
Ikigai eschews the Christmas cake sweetness of most tobacco-based perfumes, settling instead for a dusty sourness. Assisted by the cedar, it throws only its most masculine, astringent qualities into the mix. Although the tobacco does grow stronger and sweeter in the base, it never becomes syrupy. In fact, this is one tobacco blend that I don’t hesitate to recommend to (especially) men wary of the more sugary, vanillic, or clove-heavy treatments of the material. Ikigai sidesteps all the usual problems inherent in the genre and does so elegantly.
Indian Saffron (Mellifluence)
Type: ruh
Pure Indian saffron oil is hellishly strong. Like saffron threads sniffed from the jar, it smells pungently medicinal and astringent, but in oil form, there seems to be an unwelcome addition in the form of a poisonously rooty, camphoraceous note. Its level of intensity is evil, making it unwearable alone on the skin. It begs plaintively for the relief of either mixing or dilution.
Once the opening, headache-inducing blast of terpenes and iodine banks down, a divine trail of pure red saffron begins to suffuse the air around one’s warm skin. A word of warning – make sure to sniff this on the air and not directly from your skin. (Dear God, do not smell it directly from the skin).
Smelling this ruh is a timely reminder that although saffron is a wonderful raw material, it calls out for sensitive handling in its pure oil format. I recommend keeping a vial of this on hand as a reference material. I have not smelled saffron oil as pure as this before and am not entirely sure I ever want to again. Even just thinking about it is enough to bring the headache back.
Iranzol (Bruno Acampora)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Iranzol is astonishing – a perfectly-preserved time capsule of a time in perfumery when perfumers were free to use the stinkiest of floral absolutes, plant oils, and resins in their perfumes. Iranzol smells like the seventies, which makes perfect sense because it was launched in the seventies. What is extraordinary is that the formula seems to have remained unchanged since then; this is the perfume in its original form. In a day and age when brands reformulate every few years to keep up with IFRA recommendations, it is a small wonder that something like Iranzol can and does still exist.
The opening is as damply mushroomy as Acampora’s own Musc, brimming with wet soil, freshly-cut mushrooms, raw patchouli oil, and possibly some salty Italian kitchen herbs, like dried lavender and fennel root. There is definitely some myrrh oil in the blend somewhere, helping those wet earth notes along.
Clove is also suspected, because there is an accord here that is half-claggy, half-dusty, like the sour, unwashed smell of sheets folded away while still damp. This accord is both medicinal (clean) and animalic (unwashed, dusty, stale), which, although not entirely pleasant to my nose, is effective at creating an atmosphere of gloomy, faded grandeur. One imagines a dusty chaise longue in an abandoned mansion by the sea somewhere.
The drydown diverges from the central accords found in Musc by finishing up in a dry amber and sandalwood base. This never runs too sweet, retaining as most of Acampora’s oils do, that brusque connection to the earthier, more aromatic smells of the seventies, when men wore either Jovan Musk or barbershop fougères and shaved with proper soap. In other words, the sandalwood is dry and astringent, and the amber downright vegetal. No cream, sugar, or butter anywhere in sight. You might have to adjust your television set when attempting Iranzol for the first time – it is neither modern nor easy. It is an anachronism, an earthy scent for those who like the pungent, untouched smells of nature and their fellow human beings.
Istanbul (Abdul Karim Al Faransi/Maison Anthony Marmin)
Type: mukhallat
Saffron lovers, roll up, roll up! Istanbul features the fearsomely medicinal twang of real saffron, its ‘freshly tanned leather’ draped fetchingly over a lemony white rose (rosa alba) frame. The combination gives rise to a pleasingly antiseptic bitterness reminiscent of those old-fashioned antibiotic syrups whose sweetness fails to entirely mask the ferrous bite of the medicine.
Saffron always donates an austere, mysterious character to a scent, and this is no exception. The push-and-pull between the rose and saffron works because of the play of sweet against dry, feminine against masculine, flower against medicine.
The listed peach does not show up on my skin, and for the most part, the mukhallat continues in this duet between sweet rose and medicinal saffron. It becomes sweeter in the base when the Turkish rose enters left stage, kicks the lemony, fresh white rose into the wings, and telling everyone to ‘calm the hell down, dear’ while it eats bonbons on a chaise-longue. There is even a hint of a soapy, ‘perfumery’ blandness in the background. But in general, this is a simple, linear, and enjoyable rose and saffron mukhallat that will satisfy those interested in this most ancient of pairings.
Jannataul Firdaus (Nemat)
Type: mukhallat
Photo by Alecsander Alves on Unsplash
Nemat’s version of the famous blended Indian attar, Jannataul Firdaus (Garden of Eden), is decent, which, considering the abominations committed under this attar’s name by other companies, is praise indeed. The opening slaps you around the face with a fresh, oily vetiver root and bitter moss. Although it has the aldehydic freshness of a six a.m. scrubdown in cold water with a bar of good old Irish Spring soap, it skips the harsh cheapness of other Jannataul Firdaus attars. Clean and fresh, but not luxurious, this is a nice little oil with which to cool one’s skin on a hot summer’s day.
It is worth mentioning that Jannataul Firdaus follows the same path as every other attar of its ilk, drying down into the exact smell of those little green Chandrika Ayurvedic soaps one gets when ordering anything from India. Indeed, given that 95% of the attars produced in Kannauj end up in the soap, food flavoring, and tobacco industry, it is entirely possible that most of the Jannataul Firdaus-type attars actually do end up in the Chandrika soaps, hence the association. This type of attar is, dare I say, a pretty masculine preserve.
Jardin de Minuit (Sultan Pasha Attars)
Type: mukhallat
Jardin de Minuit is a dark, wild, and slightly rougher ancestor of the original Jardin d’Borneo attar used in the base of the others in the Jardin series. It focuses more on the camphoric, bitter green aspects rather than the creamy florals of its offspring and contains an inky oakmoss character that gives it a fairytale, European forest feel that is very seductive. A current of pungent green tuberose oil runs through the attar, so antiseptic it approaches the idea of chlorine.
An invigorating tiger balm and eucalyptus accord lends a medicinal, spicy freshness that elevates the attar and turns it into an excoriating balm one might wear as protection when visiting someone in hospital. The musky, bitter cedarwood provides an enticing hint of smoke and spice. The thrilling green pungency of the start softens and melts into a sweeter base later on, but never gets floral or creamy, making this the perfect attar for the floral-averse and perhaps most men.
Kāmānala (Alkemia)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: luxuriant spices, beeswax laden honeycomb, northwoods fir, bay, cedar, and smoked incense resins. From this, we added a piquant veil of red saffron over a bed of specially aged red Cambodian oud, Haitian vetiver, cuir accord, allspice berries, Eritrean bdellium, Ho wood, and Aji Rojo infused guaiac incense wood.
Kāmānala was the first in Alkemia’s series of exotic perfume oils referencing traditional Indian attar perfumery, and as such has a much higher content load of naturals and is priced accordingly ($30 for five milliliters). This perfume oil marks a shift for Alkemia towards a more serious, attar-style manner of perfume making, presaging a greater focus on natural raw materials and higher quality overall.
Kāmānala certainly smells very authentic, presenting at first sniff a very pungent, fierce saffron note layered over smoky woods and a spicy rose-oud accord. The saffron is very Indian-smelling: leathery, iodine-like, spicy, and tannic, like a stream of golden needle tea. Once the strong saffron note fades, a rather simple structure is revealed, featuring mostly powdery woods, an old-fashioned Bulgarian rose, and a medicinal oud note.
Overall, Kāmānala does smell very much like a traditional Indian attar. My only complaint would be that the saffron note leans a hair too aggressive and might be refined slightly to allow the other notes to shine. But, other than that, Kāmānala represents a step forward in complexity and intent on the part of Alkemia. Very nice work indeed.
Karnak (NAVA)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Photo by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash
Company description: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Citrus, Egyptian Amber, Red Egyptian Musk
Karnak smells like a cheap Christmas spice candle, complete with the aroma of melted beeswax.
Brimming with cinnamon, clove, and either red apple or raisins, this is a watery facsimile of Tobacco Vanille without the tobacco or indeed the vanille. In other words, all the parts of Tobacco Vanille that even people who love Tobacco Vanille complain about.
As with most NAVAs I have smelled, there is a faintly waxen layer over the spices, dimming their glow. Either NAVA perfumes don’t age well or that dusty floor wax vibe is simply part and parcel of their signature. Anyway, Karnak smells fruity, spicy, and a bit soul-destroying, like the inside of a candle store around Christmas. Later on, a metallic honey note, like sediment in a glass of white wine, sets in to spoil the ‘festive mood’ even further. There may people for whom this sounds like pure heaven, but none of those people would be me.
Kashka (Swiss Arabian)
Type: mukhallat
Kashka is one of the most popular attars for women in the Swiss Arabian range, and apparently comes in several different (numbered) variants. It is bright and woodsy, with a bitter marigold note up that glitters like a newly-minted gold coin. Marigold, or tagetes, is something I always think of as an English garden variant of saffron, in that it is similarly spicy and medicinal, but far wetter and greener.
The tagetes in Kashka reminds me of the tagetes-saffron pairing in Aramis Calligraphy Saffron, which cleverly pairs the iodine-like astringency of both notes in an East-meets-West marriage of equals. In Kashka, the simultaneously wet and dusty tagetes floats over a base of ‘aged woods’ and saffron that will be instantly familiar to those who love Swiss Arabian’s own Mukhallat Maliki (above). I recommend Kashka to those who love the earthy medicinal mustiness of marigold, saffron, and dusty woods.
Khus (Yam International)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Yam International’s take on the traditional khus attar is a creditable, if not particularly exciting, one. Past the usual grassy freshness of the vetiver that sparkles up top, the attar draws upon the almost flat, mineralic clay-like facets of vetiver root to convey a somber, serious character. It has a cooling effect on the senses and would probably work brilliantly under a white shirt for long, hot meetings in the summertime. Vetiver fans will appreciate this one both for its initial lime-peel freshness and its subsequent marshy, clay-like dankness. It captures the recalcitrant, Victor Meldrew-ish character of vetiver quite well.
Lady and a Baby Unicorn (Possets)
Type: concentrated perfume oil
Company description: A wonderful combination. Using the right type and right amount and right dilution, vetiver (that sultry, earthy, wild, and dominant part) becomes positively docile, sweet, and innocent…almost fruity in the presence of three vanillas (dry, fat, and sweet). It is like the renewal of its virginity.
Dear God with the renewal of virginity thing in the description. Anyway, don’t worry about drumming up the money to pay for hymen restoration in China because it is unlikely anyone will come within ten feet of you if you’re wearing Lady and a Baby Unicorn. It starts out with a greasy fruit-and-fuel note – mashed bananas smeared into melting plastic from a chemical spill at a factory, a grape Kool-Aid note swimming around and striking at random intervals.
What it turns into is rather miraculous, considering its terrifying opening – an earthy, grassy vetiver massaged into the shape of a fudge bonbon by industrial quantities of vanilla and – I suspect – tonka bean. The vetiver is very gourmand, reminding me somewhat of Vetiver Tonka (Hermes) without any of that scent’s more interesting burnt sugar and hazelnut edges.
The pungent fruit-fuel accord hangs around for much of the ride, though, imbuing the vetiver fudge with a hilariously poisonous character. Sniffing it up close will give you a solvent high and possibly third degree chemical burns. Still, Lady and a Baby Unicorn is the rare indie oil unafraid to take the gnarly earthiness of vetiver head on, and for that, I have to give it props.
Lutalica (Mellifluence)
Type: mukhallat
Lutalica is something that I think illustrates a teething problem common to young artisan attar makers, which is the difficulty in securing the right raw materials to create the desired effect. If you are not living in the country where the oil is distilled, or you have no means to distill it yourself, or even oversee the process, then it becomes a Sisyphean task to guarantee quality and purity.
Lutalica clearly aims to capture the naturalistic, herbal feel of authentic traditional Indian attars. It contains several traditional Indian raw materials such as henna, saffron, jasmine sambac, Indian oud, and Mysore sandalwood. However, the resulting perfume smells less like a genuine Indian attar and more like an indie perfume oil that might have come out of a house like NAVA. It smells sweet, low-key, and above-all, oily in a bland way, as if a less than excellent quality of Mysore oil had been used. This is surely not what was intended, illustrating the crapshoot that raw material sourcing can be for young artisan outfits with no financial backing and few to no capital reserves.
Mitti Attar (Aromata Mirabilia)
Type: traditional distilled attar
This mitti is expensive, but so patently the real deal that it would be rude to begrudge the price. Appointing oneself with this oil feels holy, such is its purity. Upon application, there is a wave of rich, dry earth the likes of which one imagines might have escaped from Tutankhamen’s tomb when Carter first opened it up. It is an attractively musty smell, redolent of a reddish dust mixed with millennia-old damp.
Then come the nutty, golden tones of a true santalum album oil. It unfolds in a linear fashion, the earth and sandalwood notes pursuing at first two separate tracks and then merging together to form a carpet of golden and terracotta tones. The mitti from Aromata Mirabilia is so beautiful that I can imagine people using it for meditation purposes in much the same way as they do pure Mysore sandalwood or pure Hindi oud oil. Very highly recommended, if only as a baseline.
Mitti (Mellifluence)
Type: traditional distilled attar
The Mellifluence take on mitti attar is quite pleasant. It opens with an oily, peanut-like aroma, like the clear oil that floats on top of a newly-opened jar of 100% natural peanut butter before you mix it back in. This oily peanut odor is characteristic of some santalum album oils, and a nice little side effect for people who love milky, nutty smells. The peanutty sandalwood aroma eventually settles into a softly earthy accord that emphasizes the pale, rooty (mineralic) facets of wet clay.
In trajectory, it seems to reverse the journey of the Aromata Mirabilis take on mitti, which began with earth and ended with sandalwood. The quality is much less impressive here than in the Aromata Mirabilia oil, but it is a nice option if you’re looking for a snapshot of mitti rather than the full panorama.
Mukhallat Malaki (Swiss Arabian)
Type: mukhallat
A very good mukhallat and representative of its genre. This is one of the lower-priced perfumes that I find to be much better than its price tag suggests. Mukhallat Malaki is a masculine-leaning, aromatic-woody fragrance with the leather-bound bookishness of saffron, a desiccated rose, and quite a lot of musky cedar.
The notes for this would have you thinking along the lines of a traditional rose-oud fragrance. But think again. This is far more about the delightful dustiness of neglected spaces than it is the age-old siren call of rose and oud. Yet, Mukhallat Malaki smells unmistakably exotic to the Western nose. Musty and potent, one drop goes a long way.
Mukhallat Najdi Maliki (Arabian Oud)
Type: mukhallat
Featuring notes of amber, Hindi oud, saffron, and Taifi rose, Mukhallat Najdi Maliki is a terrifically potent little thing. The fearsome funkiness of its opening is not coming from the Indian oud, because probably only a tiny amount has been used, but rather from the combination of a saffron note so medicinal it could clean a wound out in under five seconds and the sharp, honeyed pissiness of an unlisted orange blossom or neroli note. It is, shall we say, rather crotchy. A friend of mine wore this one night and was promptly relegated to the couch by his wife. It is not oud – but it has something of its unsettling funk.
But wait for it, because soon the mukhallat mellows out into a sweet, creamy saffron dessert. Picture pools of bright yellow Indian custard spiked with saffron threads and cardamom. At this stage, it resembles the creamy saffron vibe of both White Aoud by Montale and Safran Troublant by L’Artisan Parfumeur. Since Safran Troublant is rather quiet, I like to layer it over Najdi Maliki to become a walking, talking vat of kulfi. It also works wonderfully under Anubis by Papillon, the saffron in the attar serving to amplify the smoky, leathery saffron in the perfume. For saffron fans, Mukhallat Najdi Maliki is a must try.
Musk Amber (Nemat)
Type: mukhallat
Nemat’s Musk Amber has gained quite a bit of praise in the fragrance community for being a solid amber that could quite possibly stand in as a replacement for Serge Lutens’ Ambre Sultan. However, either Musk Amber has been reformulated or my sample is off, because I smell nothing of the rich, mouth-watering spice and herbs of Ambre Sultan.
Instead, Musk Amber is rather medicinal and vegetal out of the bottle, with the faintly iodine-like mustiness of saffron or henna. Its astringency identifies it as more of an Indian-style amber than an Arabian souk style typified by the Lutens. Arabian souk ambers are sweeter and thicker, fluffed out by spices, benzoin, labdanum, and lots of vanilla. Indian ambers, on the other hand, tend to be austere, spicy, and built using lots of leathery saffron. Musk Amber is very much the latter.
As the saffron dies away, the blend becomes much sweeter, and closer to what many people would associate with a classic souk amber aroma. It is faintly vegetal all the way through, but the warmth of the drydown is a nice payoff. For a fairly-priced ambery attar, one could do worse, although one must appreciate saffron or henna to get through the opening phase.
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 all the samples reviewed in this chapter, apart from the samples from Sultan Pasha Attars, which were gifted to me by the brand for Attar Guide review purposes, and the Henry Jacques samples, which were part of a Basenotes sampling thread.
Cover Image: Photo by Natasha Furst on Unsplash
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