Timbuktu L'Artisan Parfumeur 2004

In a raffle here I won a lot of beautiful perfume samples, and am very happy that I may now train my beginner's nose (a big thank you for it to Knopfnase!).
Now I can blindly reach into the box and just try where chance takes me. Today I landed at Timbuktu.

In the first moment, when I sprayed this fragrance on my forearm, I thought still, slightly horrified, "What is this now for a cologne?". A few moments later, the aftershave stereotype then but gave way to another perception: "...Hmmm... that has but a delicious undertone....".

There is a very nice scent development here. The slight freshness in the top notes, which I can't identify as mango so, lingers for a long time. Here at last is a vetiver scent that doesn't collapse into citrus. Vetiver combines with myrrh here and the two make a great and unusual team, subtly taking the frankincense into its midst. Patchouli also does not push itself forward.
Unobtrusively, the benzoin contributes a slight spicy sweetness, which pleasantly underpins the fragrance and intercepts the metallic and somewhat musty sharpness of the vetiver.

The result is a multi-layered and complex fragrance that brings out each of its components beautifully and harmoniously. Nothing slips here into the banal, and there is no cheap showmanship. This fragrance relies on the sophistication with which the individual elements of its structure are interwoven, has depth and seems natural.

It is not a classic, even if it seems so in the first approach and it is quite suitable for the office. While little noisy, its composition seems to me but still too peculiar and special to classify it as a classic.

Even if he is designated by the manufacturer as a men's fragrance, I can see him just as on a woman. Liebstentauglich I find him all the time