Bottle Design:
Jules Dinand, Pierre Dinand

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Camel Zoologist 2017

7.7 / 10 438 Ratings

A popular perfume by Zoologist for women and men, released in 2017. The scent is oriental-spicy. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Oriental

Spicy

Animal

Resinous

Fruity

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Dried fruits

Frankincense Rose

Rose

Date palm

Heart Notes

Incense material Myrrh

Myrrh

Cinnamon

Orange blossom Amber

Amber

Cedar

Jasmine

Base Notes

Civet

Animalic musk

Sandalwood Oud

Oud

Tonka bean Vanilla

Vanilla

Vetiver

Perfumer

Christian Carbonnel a.k.a. Chris Maurice

Ratings

Scent

7.7438 Ratings

Longevity

8.0373 Ratings

Sillage

7.5378 Ratings

Bottle

8.5359 Ratings

Value for money

6.8208 Ratings

Submitted by Franfan20, last update on 09/24/2025.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

XXI: Art Deco - Blonde Amber

Al Oudh

Me Gustas

Arabie

Cèdre

al02

Reviews

31 in-depth fragrance descriptions

11/03/2023

10
Bottle 10
Sillage 6
Longevity 10
Scent

Once
3 Reviews

Once

7

Epic of Womanhood

I should not have worn this to work.

This smells like the Madonna/Whore complex.
This smells like the Maiden Mother Crone cycle.
This smells like going through the Bible backward, from Mary to Sheba to Eve.
This smells like the chapter in American Gods with Bilquis and the trucker.

I am in love, I am in lust, I am talking myself down from a full bottle to a travel spray because I will only be able to wear it recreationally in the winter.

It starts sweet and warm and comforting. Christmas cookies and hugs and sitting with your friends in a cozy sweater and the memory of your grandmother, and the woman at the halal bakery who calls you sister.

Then the cinnamon turns to incense and the jasmine turns to sandalwood and the amber turns to oud and it’s not a friendly warmth anymore, it’s the moment kisses turn to undressing, it’s a promise, it’s an invitation.

Then it gets musky and animalic and it is so so sexy, but the fruit keeps offering itself, until it rests in smoke and sandalwood.

Turn the wheel again, it says, be reborn.

I would wear this to slay Holofernes and fuck King Solomon

01/29/2018

sebjar
55 Reviews

sebjar

Helpful Review 3

Zoologist Perfumes Camel Review on YouTube

My guest and I both enjoyed Camel and the story behind the perfume as well as the Zoologist Perfumes brand. I personally enjoyed it for the Fruity (dried fruity, fruits), Spicy, Musky, Amber notes in Camel and my guest enjoyed it for the Frankincense and Incense. We both experienced the fragrances differently which makes it unique. We had two different experiences but really enjoyed the story of the animal, Camel and the inspiration to create this wonderful perfume. Learn more about Camel by Zoologist Perfumes, please watch our video. Thank you.

07/19/2018

8
Bottle 7
Sillage 9
Longevity 8
Scent

Pepdal
238 Reviews

Pepdal

Helpful Review 3

Camel by Zoologist

Released in late 2017, yet another eagerly awaited release from this inventive and likeable indie house. The fun is always trying to make the connection between the scent and the fauna. Does this work?

02/18/2023

6
Pricing 8
Bottle 6
Sillage 7
Longevity 8.5
Scent

Kurai
388 Reviews

Kurai

3

Desert breeze

Recently I stopped calling myself a green-floral type. I do not want to narrow my horizon so much that I have only florals in my wardrobe. So I got more comfortable with other styles like woods, musks and also with leathers. I am still picky so I do not enjoy everything that I try, but I reckon there is so much creativity and quality out there. Ambers and incense scents, however, always seemed a bridge too far. Mostly because I cannot stand when a perfume wraps me in a dense and suffocating cloud and that happened to me quite a few times with those Orientals. I mean ambers. In Camel I found a solution.

Those warm and dense flavors are there in abundance. Spice, incense and dried fruits mainly, with a little animalism underneath. The projection levels were skillfully set up, so that from up close one gets all that gooey density, but at an arm-length distance the scent wafts in a more subtle manner. Smoke and warm spices pass by as if they were carried by a soft breeze. A desert breeze, if you will. Exactly what I needed to enjoy this type of scent.

There is not really a clear top to bottom development. It is more a come and go of the various notes. I particularly like the dried fruits that occasionally pop up. Overall, I find Camel highly enjoyable and potentially my first purchase in its genre.

06/03/2025

ClaireV
958 Reviews

ClaireV

3

Dried fruits over a piquant asafetida base

There’s a famous delicatessen in Milan by the name of Peck. Established in 1883, it’s a Mecca for food enthusiasts, its shelves stocked with the finest cured meats, cheeses, wines, and truffles of Italy. When I lived nearby, in Bergamo, (in my early twenties), I would often take the train down to Milan at the weekend, and walk through the store, drinking in the unami-rich air. I remember in particular huge glass jars of mostarda – neon-colored orbs of fruit preserved in a clear mustard seed pickling juice. When the afternoon light caught them at the right angle, they glowed like the gaudiest of paste jewelry: emerald, yellow, and orange. The guys behind the counter would goad me into taking a little with my prosciutto and salami snack, and they’d laugh as I gingerly nibbled at the edges, the virgin blandness of an Irish diet having ill-equipped me to deal with the gush of hot, sour, sweet, and savory flavors on my tongue. When I first tried Arabie by Serge Lutens, its dried fruits over a sour asafetida base reminded me immediately of my trips to Peck. But although the association charmed me, Arabie proved too syrup-saturated for regular wear, so I passed it by. I’ll admit that when I read the notes for Zoologist Camel, I thought we were looking at a re-tread of Arabie. But while the dried fruits and dates in the topnotes give a rush of sweetness, Camel is far more sour and savory than it is sweet, and thus reminds me more authentically of Peck and its mostarda than does Arabie.

I think that Victor Wong, as a creative director, is not afraid of a little earthy sourness in the perfumes he commissions. In a sea of sweet niche releases designed to appeal to a mass sweet tooth, he doesn’t mind going sugar-free every now and then. And I like that about him.
Perhaps his bravery with salty-savory flavors comes from an inherent love of unami or the sweet-salty-sour balance in Chinese culinary tradition. I will always remember Victor’s review of M/ Mink for his blog, Sillyage, where he discusses the link between M/Mink’s bleachy opening notes and the smell of Chinese calligraphy ink and dried shellfish. It was the first review of M/Mink that ever made sense to me, because he was able to place it in the context of non-traditionally perfumey things like salt, iodine, and fish. Through his words, I came to understand and finally love that perfume.

Camel has a streak of kimchi running through the dried fruit, amber, and orange blossom, which stops the perfume from tipping into a syrupy cliché of Arabian perfumery. Forget the ad copy about deserts and camels. There is a brief hit of booze, dried fruit, and rose up front, but the frankincense here is limey and tart, and there’s a layer of sealing wax over everything to mute the fervent glow of the fruit. It is rich, but astringent, like a vin jaune from the Alps.

The sourness is given an extra boost in its rather classically French (or so it seems to me) heart of civety jasmine over a pillow of powdery musks. The jasmine is greenish and as fizzy as a vitamin tablet dropped into a glass of water, later developing the leathery profile of sambac jasmine. There is something here that resembles the moist skin under a wristwatch after a long day in the sun. The griminess of the jasmine stands shoulder to shoulder with its gritty, soapy cleanliness, giving the perfume an almost aldehydic buzz.

This tart, soapy, tightly-woven stage of Camel makes me think that Malle’s Superstitious (2016) must indeed have been quite influential on the perfumery scene. There are clear parallels between the Malle and Camel, especially in the acidulated jasmine, the slight raunchiness (without warmth), and its general angularity. Jardin d’Ombre by Ormonde Jayne, which came out in October 2016, the same month as Superstitious, also strikes me as a variation on the theme. In all three perfumes, one might read the notes and think “warmth” or “sweetness”, but the actual scent in each case is of the opposite of lush: astringent, cool-blooded, and definitely more French than oriental in tone.

I admire Superstitious greatly but prefer to gaze upon it from a distance, like watching Joan Crawford rehearse from the safety of a locked wardrobe. Camel, with its pert charm, has fewer pretensions to greatness and is therefore much more approachable. Despite the orientalism of its composition and ad copy, Camel avoids every cliché inherent to the genre, particularly the cheap rosy feel of most modern oriental releases. Its soapy (but dirty) jasmine, musk, and civet combo imbues what might otherwise have been a heavy “souk” amber with weightlessness, as well as a certain French je ne sais quoi. As long as you’re ok with a little salty-sour funk, Camel might be the modern twist on an oriental you’re missing in your collection. Camel is predominantly French in character, but there is perhaps also something a little Chinese or even Peck-ian in its balance between sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and unami.

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