Dark splendour
Dewaniya is so gloriously rich that you can smell it before you have pulled the stopper.
On application, we meet a dark, handsome prince of an attar, supremely confident and bold… defiant amongst ancient carved walls and intricately patterned carpets.
It evokes dark amber, black and red colours.
Layer open layer of rich smells: tobacco, honey, smoke, saffron, black tea, oud, rose and labdanum... twinkling with ambergris and uplifted by frankincense and myrrh.
Dark, sexy, complex and confident… Those who love Ame Sombre, Tabac Grande or Ambrecuir, amongst others, will no doubt love this masterful blend.
Whole lotta magic...
***Fine-boned, pale rose swooning in a sensuous golden haze, sublimed by a heady, yet supremely graceful, oud. Exquisite, and very sexy**
Ancient Japanese spice
Spicy yellow and red earth. Reminiscent of the remains of my Shoyeido incense, but this one is less floral and seductive than what I use. Nankun proposes an extremely contemplative route which is not the norm in perfumery where the aim is usually to seduce. Far from the world of scented gloves and boudoirs, this takes one back to sweet pungent trees and seeds of the earth. For monks and samurai.
Lust in the pantry...
A warm and richly perfumed honey coming from an imaginary land: creamy tonka and sandalwood juxtaposed with bitter almond and red saffron strands.
A heady quality that I recognize from such strange beauties as ‘Nectare’ and ‘Rêve Narcotique’. Intoxicating and rich. But, soon, everything starts to change...
Hold on! Where is the iris? Iris is here all right, richer than ever, but this time her hue isn’t the usual creamy bluish violet, no, here she is sublimed in a huge golden sunset.
Just as you were getting comfy, the thing starts to nibble your ear with an onslaught of the finest musk, ambergris and osmanthus... turning this into a carnal scent.
Although the air wafts a breeze of fresh biscuits and chocolate delights being prepared somewhere, the perfume now smells of panting, love-sweetened skin, with a dangerous dark fruitiness.
A strange and beautiful ode...
Thebes is a homage to Guerlain Djedi. To even attempt such a project is huge because Djedi (I have tested the Thierry Wasser vintage reproduction) is such a peculiar and mysterious scent.
Djedi is the most atmospheric perfume I have ever smelled, and it doesn't project conventional seduction, on the contrary, it could be described as 'The beautiful dead'.
To me, the greatest perfumes make you forget ingredients and composition... and take you elsewhere.
Somehow, Sultan Pasha has captured this bizarre and forbidding atmosphere in his attar Thebes.
The crisp spring morning opening with lily of the valley prominent to the sky, beautifully balanced with comforting but deep orris to the ground. The whole soon swathed in a strange, beautiful doom, as if visiting an Egyptian tomb, with a peaceful, ancient atmosphere that you have never experienced before. But it is delightful.
The dry down is very complex and has, like Djedi, to me anyway, a really ancient leather slippers smell. Not that I have smelled any ancient slippers.
