Encens Divin Givenchy 2018

I waited a long time with a comment, which my absolute favourite fragrance deserves. "Encens Divin" has been with me since autumn 2018 - "Guilt" is the nice salesman of a duty free shop at London Heathrow airport, who was able to classify my fragrance preferences well and made me so happy with a spray of the golden elixir that I couldn't let my arm bend during the almost one and a half hour flight to Hamburg. The distinguished Brit next to me deliberately ignored me until his cell phone disappeared under the seat during a turbulence. I helped him find it by using mine as a flashlight. Head down, our eyes met and he was probably a wave of "Encens Divin". Promptly he said, "Oh, it DOES smell good!" Also the mobile phone found itself a row behind us again.

But now to the fragrance: The peppery top note is astonishingly soft, almost with hints of honey and embedded in the already ascending incense, which also carries, envelops, connects and refines all the other notes in the further course.

If "Encens Divin" were a gemstone, it would be an amber - a magnificent, large, highly polished amber with facets ranging from dark orange-brown to brilliant gold, in which time-trapped, filigree insects dance. Its depth and long-lasting fragrance development are like the play of light and shadow, which let you discover ever new details inside this stone, which is not one. Like the tree resin, which is sometimes millions of years old, "Encens Divin", thanks to incense and amber, also awakens associations for me with prehistory and early history, a time long before our time.

The scent takes me to Mesopotamia, to the first advanced civilizations, to cities like Ur and Akkad. Here a warm wind blows around the Zikkurate, but not only the people, also the gods war each other and must be appeased again and again with fragrances. Wise rulers like Hamurabi and Gilgamesh ensure that these rules are strictly observed, and so the incense can still be smelled in the warm stones and tasted in the warm, dusty air long after the sun has fallen over the horizon in the evening. That's the divine incense!

The association with "Akkad" by Lubin is by no means accidental, since these fragrances are soul mates. Both evoke a depth and beauty that few fragrance compositions can achieve. Both are not miserly with an abundance of ingredients from the Middle East, whereby the rose absolute and the balsamic cedar notes of "Encens Divin" make the fragrance for me even more beautiful and deeper than that of "Akkad".

If you love Akkad, you might fall for Encens Divin. I am it anyway with skin & hair and am happy to be able to wear this ancient, wonderfully radiant light-dark fragrance in the cooler months again.