Blu Agar Aura 2023 Attar

Opens up liqueur-like, absolutely smooth, sweet, herbal. Amaros, or amari, italian for bitters, are a large subsection of liqueurs made by the maceration of herbs, spices, roots, bark, flowers and citrus in alcohol, to which Absinthe belongs. It’s my favorite type of alcoholic beverage, something I got into before I began my perfume journey, and looking back it’s funny the similarities between the two. It’s just one you wear, the other you drink. But both you imbibe. I think the absinthe is utilized wonderfully here, mostly in the feel and texture, it’s anise and mentholated facets being used to help create the initial “coolness” of the blend.

The papyrus and rose here are also expertly used, their slight powdery sides synergizing, the former’s dry earthy and smokiness amplified by vetiver, the latter’s delicate citric aromas and petal-like softness lasting well into the heart.

Lastly, the oakmoss and oud—the main events… The oakmoss, similar to in Agar Parisien, stands out a lovely seafoam green in both texture and color. It is the forest at the water’s edge, the mossy woodlands surrounding the crystal lake, the ‘green’ in a green & blue marble representing the earth. Despite it’s higher concentration in AP, I feel it plays the main foil here as well, or the main yang to the oud’s yin.

And that leaves… the oud. Clean, clear, yet yet also damp, woody, earthy, ancient… Slightly fruity, smoky, leathery. Liquid. The textures of each ingredient are rendered wonderfully in this perfume, and the oud is no exception. Despite not having any real ‘marine’ quality—though perhaps a slight mineralic one—there is something, more than the description, that conjures both crystal clear and deep blue waters. An ocean, it’s lapping waves scintillating in the sunshine. The crystal clear glacier waters of Alaska. I wasn’t getting the “ice capped mountains and ozone” until the drydown, but now I can see it. I can see it all…

I find myself seriously asking… does this smell like Gatorade’s Glacier Freeze or Cool Blue? Because I genuinely feel like there might be some common ground. I also find myself wanting to describe it as “terpenic,” and, “somehow tinged with lemon and pine.” It is also, in a similar vein, akin to what I’d consider an idyllic cannabis profile. I’ve said before of my favorite perfumes that I’d imbibe them in every way possible if I could, be that smoke, drink, bathe—all that can be done to ‘become’ their scents as much as possible…

It’s incredible the way we can sympathize with perfumes. I guess it really is because scent’s so closely associated with memory. I wonder if it’s for that reason every perfume seems to have it’s own “personality,” which is what I’d claim we strive to “become one with” when we wear them, and what we “sympathize” with in particular, and which are often composites of ingredients with their own simpler personalities. But like in real life, it’s the robust, the eccentric, the seemingly “beyond” personalities that attract us the most. Or at least those of us with a neverending thirst for novelty. Oh yee, my brethren and sistren of unrelenting curiosity! May we find peace before our final breaths.

Anyway where the hell was I. Yeah, so this shit slaps brother. Truly astounding. I consider it the crown jewel in my collection, which isn’t the shabbiest. I’m honestly not sure why I find it so mesmerizing. I’d probably describe it more as “blue-green” than just blue, the loamy oakmoss working with the foresty oud to create beautiful fougère nuances. But there’s also such a “clarity” here that I have trouble articulating… maybe I’ll come back if something new comes to me. Lastly, I’m having the thought that the ‘terpenic’ sense I get could also be considered ‘sour.’ I also love sour tastes and scents.

Sillage rather intimate, longevity superb. For just $180 for a full 3g, I consider it among the best deals available in the world of attars.

Bravo, good sir!!!!!