Rhapsody Elixir Attar 2025

Singing clay flower trails all over the animals. Notes rise from the foaming backs like meandering soap bubbles, iridescent from bitter orange pearls that drift crackling on the membranes, pincushions of tart twigs in which pale red mists drift in air bubbles that linger from carbonic acids after hours, yet do not settle in the snow globes. They dance rosé wine-colored silks. Turning hazily in mossy veils. From the salt of their skin, tobacco blossoms float on earth, which themselves become enticing trails of luminous clay made of pheromones. Vanilla-white threads in amber weaves, spun over tiny crumbs of clay, continue to wander in the winds on paths that blow away to grains.
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Elixir Attar from Los Angeles says it is constantly on the lookout for high-quality raw materials from Asia. Allegedly, they also use long-standing relationships in royal circles to obtain particularly rare materials. The small team relies on both traditional and modern knowledge in the production of their creations.
“Rhapsody” is based on an extremely harmoniously interwoven accord of deer musk and patchouly and has been released in two versions, as both versions were considered so well balanced that neither was discarded. One version contains a particularly large amount of deer musk, while the other, which I tested, contains a significantly higher dose of citrus fruits.
However, the musky-patchouly accord also proves to be dominant in this version. First of all, there is the association of a very noble soap, subtly sweet and animalic (pheromonal!), whereby the sweetness is contrasted with sparkling petitgrain, in which the bitter oranges, flowers and twigs are literally palpable. The slight acidity of the rose geranium also has a harmonizing effect here. For me, the ambergris proves to be another link, itself warm and musky, complementing the earthy, pheromone-like notes with salty and tobacco blossom-like aromas, while the vanilla aromas combine with the hint of benzoin from the base, while the moss gives the earth a little more moisture before it seems to become drier and more grainy towards the end, leaving traces of rather bitter-sweet amber on dry clay.
For me, however, this is not a loosely connected piece of music, as the name Rhapsody suggests, as the individual elements intertwine too well for that. Rather, a development from animalic floral soap with citrus pinpricks to salty tobacco aromas to subtle vanilla resinous-earthy aromas is easy to follow, intense to moderate and full-bodied.

(With thanks to Snoopyelfi)