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Sparkling Sand 2017

7.5 / 10 105 Ratings
A perfume by Jacques Zolty for women and men, released in 2017. The scent is spicy-woody. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Spicy
Woody
Leathery
Sweet
Fruity

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes Top Notes
FrankincenseFrankincense MugwortMugwort LemonLemon
Heart Notes Heart Notes
LeatherLeather ApricotApricot ChamomileChamomile IrisIris
Base Notes Base Notes
Virginia cedarVirginia cedar MuskMusk VanillaVanilla AmberAmber
Ratings
Scent
7.5105 Ratings
Longevity
7.586 Ratings
Sillage
6.983 Ratings
Bottle
7.279 Ratings
Value for money
6.925 Ratings
Submitted by EvilCat, last update on 11/04/2025.
Interesting Facts
The fragrance is part of the L'Original collection.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to
Soleil de Jeddah by Stéphane Humbert Lucas
Soleil de Jeddah
17 Rosso by Roberto Ugolini
17 Rosso
Italian Leather (Eau de Parfum) by Memo Paris
Italian Leather Eau de Parfum
Nùr Eau Fine (Eau de Parfum) by soOud
Nùr Eau Fine Eau de Parfum
Tuscan Leather (Eau de Parfum) by Tom Ford
Tuscan Leather Eau de Parfum
Galop d'Hermès by Hermès
Galop d'Hermès

Reviews

6 in-depth fragrance descriptions
Lidijabern

49 Reviews
Lidijabern
Lidijabern
1  
Maybe not every love starts at first sight
What to say about "Sparkling Sand"? Someone said this fragrance is a chameleon, and I agree. When I first bought it and sprayed it on my hand, I was so disappointed: all I could smell was this bitter, herbal smell thanks to artemisia / mugwort/ pelin plant.

Where is this sparkling sand under my feet, on a dusky summer evening?

All other notes were "no brainer" for me, I love chamomile, iris, apricot, leather... But I just couldn't go pass this bitter opening.

Yesterday, my husband sprayed it on and room was immediately full of wonderful, powdery, comforting fragrance. Powdery aspect is not to be ignored, iris is very present and chamomile too. Apricot is dormant and not loud.

Leather and incense work perfectly to make unisex composition, albeit very powdery one.

Bottle is heavy, magnetic cap of great quality and you can really smell fine, different and refined perfume in this one. Longevity is super, sillage is in "I'm here, folks" category.

Fine fragrance. Maybe not mass-appealing and a crowd pleaser, but a surprisingly odd and niche juice.
0 Comments
StenLaurel

34 Reviews
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StenLaurel
StenLaurel
Top Review 26  
Not for the Sandman
"Have you been smoking again?" Peter snaps at me. "We have forest fire level four!" "Carsten will be at the door any minute!" Carsten is with the fire department. Peter is the village cat. I live with Peter. And no, I haven't been smoking.

"Sparkling Sand!" I explain. "I have a date." "With a nice perfume."
"Oh, that conspiratorial one?" "The one you talked about?" Peter is no fool.
"Yes, we want to swap. Samples. At the university."
"During the bright day?" Peter raises his whiskers. He's read too much John le Carré.
"And you're going to douse yourself with Sparkling Sand?" "Have you read what has been reviewed?"
"No, what?" "Besides, it's called reviewed. With a 'v' and 'ed'!"

"Well, then watch out!" Peter taps his paw on the mouse cinema. Opens a perfume page. Reads aloud:
"Medicine cabinet - wizard - scratchy lemon - herbal tea - grandma from the bathroom - dull apricot - grandpa's absurd pipe tobacco - ammonium pastilles …"

I have to stop him. "But there's so much more!" he interjects. Never mind, that's enough. I like this scent. What others write doesn't matter to me. To put it loosely. I enjoy the smoky aspect. It must be the incense. The leathery notes. And whatever else is in there. Lemon, for example. I usually don't like lemon. In real life, that is. But here, I do.

"Just copy the pyramid description!" Peter suggests. "Others do that too."
Sure, I could do that. But it goes against my grain. I want to convey MY scent impression here. Not what others think. Or what is listed somewhere. Period.

So: Sparkling Sand is a wonderfully niche (or is it nishe?) fragrance! Smoky. Leathery. Spicy. Fresh. Not sweet. Although "Sweet" is listed in the pyramid .. Tzzzz … It just doesn't sparkle. Unless you count the sparkle in the eyes.

A must-have for anyone who appreciates a perfume that is affordable, not hyped, not smelling like every corner, has a silly name, but smells incredibly good.
Warning, unsuitable blind buy candidate for the distinguished hype friend!
30 Comments
Leimbacher

2873 Reviews
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Leimbacher
Leimbacher
Top Review 21  
The Desert Magnet
Leather and summer... does that clash? Nope. "Sparkling Sand" is the best proof of that. Spontaneously purchased because the name and scent impression appealed to me. Now thoroughly tested, and I must say: a very fine leather apricot! Like a super transparent "L'Air du Desert Maroccain" towards the end, most comparable to "Daim Blond," which I have long had on my wishlist. Not the classic vacation scent. Something new. Hard to categorize, easy to love.

Really summery and sandy thoughts only come to me remotely, but you can definitely wear it in the hot season. Like a beige leather handbag - sparkling and bright. Then it fits again. Delicious and yet never gourmand. Warm and yet never overwhelming. A sense of finesse packed in the bottle. It is calming, almost has a relaxed wellness vibe (chamomile?). Not a delicate little plant, but precious. The vanilla far in the background rounds it out, the apricot is lovely, the leather gives it strength, the mugwort provides the initial kick, and the cedar gives a darker finish. Not an oriental, not a European. Just a top-notch fragrance! For everything with two legs.

Bottle: beautiful magnetic cap, handy, stylish, fitting the theme - unspectacular but top-notch!
Sillage: detectable for everyone - even for me for a long time. No trace of adaptation.
Longevity: 8-10 hours. Eight to ten hours. Just wanted to write that out again. Strong for a "summer scent."

Conclusion: if you're looking for a sandy-soft, warm leather scent for summer, you should pay a visit to the good Zolty - there aren't many left of this extinct breed!
5 Comments
FungShangLou

2 Reviews
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FungShangLou
FungShangLou
Top Review 14  
Surreal Scent Roulette - or: SOS, the medicine cabinet has fallen off the wall!
No idea. I really don’t know. How am I supposed to accurately convey this scent, these many, many scents at different stages of the fragrance evolution? I am overwhelmed.

Okay, let’s first take a look at the community’s fragrance type classification below.
This scent has received an incredible number of different opinions! Looking at the somewhat hidden radar chart, even more. And that’s pretty much how I feel about Sparkling Sand!

Sparkling Sand is like... what was it called in Game of Thrones? Shade of the Evening, the drink of the sorcerers that tastes like everything you’ve ever tasted and more. Sparkling Sand is everything and nothing at the same time. Leather? Yes and no. Wood? Yes and no. Apricot? You see where I’m going with this..?!

I’ll give it another try and describe the scent from the very beginning:

Opening: Scratchy lemon, very fresh and sour with a minimal herbal touch. It could almost have been a summer scent. Within a few minutes, the illusion shifts, it smells smokier. At the same time, it’s as if you’re in a closed room where herbal tea is being brewed. Not as if you’re smelling directly from the cup, but as if this heavy steam from the tea is in the air - probably it’s the chamomile. Later on, the fresh lemon has been processed, and there’s a bitter lemon zest in the tea, the fruit has been discarded. The scent becomes warm and heavy, I smell strong cedarwood. Since cedar can quickly smell leathery, an association with leather is also possible, but no, not authentic leather. Look, grandma has come out of the bathroom and sits down with her tea. She smells overwhelmingly of her skin cream, which is very sweet, very creamy, very powdery, and very synthetic. Like heavily perfumed chemicals. From a distance, one might recognize iris and vanilla, but only faintly. I complain about the strong scent, and she means well and sprays an air freshener. A dull cloud of "apricot" fills the room. It came from a spray bottle, what can you expect: no, that’s not an authentic apricot, it’s too dull and not zesty or fruity enough. I get a headache, what a mess! But that’s just the scent in the first 10 minutes.

The next stage of the scent becomes even more difficult. Grandma’s skin cream and the air freshener fade, they linger faintly in the air, or my nose has simply gotten used to it. It smells woody-leathery, neither of which is really recognizable as such. It would be misleading to call the scent woody; it only goes in that direction. Rather, it is dark and smoky. A green component joins in, which is equally dark. Bitter, scratchy herbs without any hint of freshness. If the herbs were something like sage or lavender, they would be barbershop-fresh and invigorating. These are dead, like weeds with dirt still clinging to them. Through the smokiness, one might also think it’s an absurd tobacco blend for grandpa’s pipe. Let’s add the remaining hints of skin cream and air freshener, more like an even more absurd mix from the shisha bar.

Later on, the herbal aspect is much more pronounced, without losing the diabetic sweetness in the background. It smells sharply medicinal. Grandpa is tasting his favorite herbal liqueur, and the one I’m talking to has an unpleasant breath of ammonium pastilles. One would claim it smells as if the well-stocked medicine cabinet had fallen off the wall and crashed into the home bar. Yuck, this is how traditional pharmacies must have smelled a few hundred years ago! In the late drydown, I perceive it as cooler and dusty. Is this the namesake sand? I don’t think so; it smells more like dusty air after drilling into a wall. In summary, the scent was very sweet for most of the time, subtly fruity, and therefore more feminine for me. But with all this fuss and a bit of everything, what does feminine even mean anymore?

And with that, we’ve really covered just about every scent and fragrance direction, everything and nothing at the same time: fruity, ashy, citrusy, leathery-woody, warm, powdery, herbal, green, vanillic, smoky, dark, fresh, heavy, tea, chamomile, spicy, bitter, medicinal, dusty, cool. What on earth is this?

Yes, this perfume is unique. One of a kind. Rare. Incomparable.
But is it good as an overall composition? For me, it’s really everything but a poem!

There are perfumes that are so bad that you can’t even call them perfume anymore. I can’t say that about Sparkling Sand; it still smells "intentional" and like perfume. In that sense: No, not a complete scent disaster, but certainly a surreal scent roulette!
9 Comments
Verbeene

232 Reviews
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Verbeene
Verbeene
Top Review 11  
Aphrodite's First Scent Impression....
First: cool sand, stone dust, solitude on the beach before sunrise.
And then the first light slowly comes:
frankincense and lemon, something herbal-spicy.
The scent becomes airier, warmer, softer
chamomile and a very restrained apricot, the leather note is very delicate and fine
the bitterness and severity of damp sand lies subtly beneath
I smell water and salt
and then the sand begins to shimmer, fine silver, gleaming bright structures run through the scent image.
A primordial scent.
Perhaps Aphrodite smelled this when she emerged from the waves....
3 Comments
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Statements

34 short views on the fragrance
6 months ago
If Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy" has a fragrance this would be it. Opens like skittles, dry down is leather and fruity candy.
0 Comments
28
18
It's great! Delicate incense, minimal sweetness, wood, and green notes.
Unfortunately, the leather bothers me a bit, but that's just me.
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18 Comments
20
16
Bitter-citrusy start/
tender & creamy mushroom sauce/
gentle woods & creamy leather paradise/
spicy chamomile & sweet vanilla kiss
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16 Comments
5 years ago
16
9
The apricot makes an otherwise nice scent lose its shine. Not as bad as Rasasi's Tobacco Blaze.
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9 Comments
15
12
Rose-gold sand, sweet apricots, sunscreen, and ash. It may sound odd, but it's these quirks that give it its value.
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12 Comments
15
4
A bright and airy sweet-powdery scent with increasing leather and wood as a contrast.
Very charming and pleasant to wear.
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4 Comments
11
3
Here, a powdery sweetness dominates, blended with some incense, leather, and cedar. It resembles Gli Invisibili - 24.09.2011.
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3 Comments
10
2
one of my most beautiful and favorite summer fragrances... Ani plus incense and a hint of leather
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2 Comments
9
13
Fruity chamomile, that's quite curious. Base with cedar, amber-vanilla notes. Somehow also has a spicy-bright freshness °°°
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13 Comments
9
6
Interesting blend of dry sand, herbal vegetation, and creamy violet. Unfortunately, it develops an off note on me.
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6 Comments
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Charts

This is how the community classifies the fragrance.
Pie Chart Radar Chart

Images

8 fragrance photos of the community
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