Ashfaque
Jonoon al Oud
Radiant Chypre
This is my first attempt to make a proper floral bouquet within the chypre framework. Although it looks quite dark, the florals in it are all about uplifting the mood of the wearer - mainly me and my better half - my lovely guinea pig!
It begins with a simple bergamot with a super smooth nutmeg absolute, and then further mellowed by butter CO2 - a very lovely stuff that smells like a cross between ghee (clarified butter) and a 100% butter. It also eases us into the floral bouquet which is assisted by lot of base materials, none of which takes away the centre stage from the floral bouquet that I’m trying to create in this chypre.
Neroli and orange blossom absolute takes over from the bergamot – slowly taking it towards a sweeter spectrum. There is a lot of red champaca, gardenia and rose (otto and abs) in it – a lot! I like the heady interaction between gardenia and red champaca, whilst the Persian rose otto lends its ‘green creaminess’ and the Turkish rose provides a more floral intensity. Lavender abs and jasmine sambac evokes freshness and indoles respectively in this floral andante. As usual civet’s impact is quite influential – the marginal benefit of having and adding some civet is just too big to avoid!
In the dry down I can detect leathery sweetness from a Chittagong oud and animalics (from castoreum and hyrax) and dryness from tobacco, which seem to go quite nicely with two ouds and buddha wood – improving the overall radiancy of the attar. I used a white ambergris to open up the spectrum. Interestingly, I can detect this sea-gold from the bottle (smell of fresh sea breeze), but not on my skin. However, it serves its main purpose – diffusion of other oils for longer time, especially florals.
There is a glaring omission in this chypre - labdanum. As much as I love it, it can take over from almost every strong/base material, let alone from the relatively soft florals I have used in it. But the sweetness, leather, and musky notes are taken care of very nicely by tobacco, Thai oud, and two hays, ambrette seeds - albeit with less intensity.
I used two hay oils – one adding a slightly sweet hay note (similar to the one I get from Thai Honey) and the other adding a slightly toffee like honey notes - thus slight reducing the astringency (dryness) further that is coming from oakmoss, myrrh and tobacco. The frankincense, myrrh and benzoin add some depth, without drawing attention away from the central theme. I had to be quite careful as adding too much of these resins can move it towards a more incense-oriented attar (may be that’ll be my next one). Finally, it has a gorgeously creamy sandalwood oil in its base, distilled from 75+ years old trees from Karnataka.
The best part of this attar is that the orris resinoid and oakmoss stays from the top to the dry down with various intensities whilst interacting with various florals – mostly playing like a cello/violin in the fore- and back-ground, along with a sweet and powdery ambrette seed absolute from France. BTW, this oakmoss is the full-on classic one, not that IFRA-compliant simpleton.
I asked my wife what word does pop into her head when she wore it for the first time – dark, radiant, woody or sweet. She said ‘radiant’ and I felt the same way! Hence the name and the attar in its current stage – a floral bouquet.
Time to let it age for few weeks. Thank you for reading such a long and annoying description (I really did not want to delete the text) lol. In the mean time, please feel free to suggest any tweaks.
NOTES
Top: Bergamot, Butter CO2, nutmeg abs.
Heart: Gardenia, J. sambac abs, lavender abs, neroli, orange blossom abs, Persian rose otto, red champaca, and Turkish rose abs.
Base: Ambrette seed abs, Austrian and Spanish hays, benzoin, buddha wood, castoreum, civet abs, frankincense, hyraceum, myrrh CO2, orris resinoid (22% iron), oakmoss abs (non-IFRA), sandalwood (S. India), Thai Honey (Le Maison Khenata, 2017), and Chittagong (2016) [two ouds], tobacco, vanilla abs, and white/grey ambergris (s. albam macerated).
This is my first attempt to make a proper floral bouquet within the chypre framework. Although it looks quite dark, the florals in it are all about uplifting the mood of the wearer - mainly me and my better half - my lovely guinea pig!
It begins with a simple bergamot with a super smooth nutmeg absolute, and then further mellowed by butter CO2 - a very lovely stuff that smells like a cross between ghee (clarified butter) and a 100% butter. It also eases us into the floral bouquet which is assisted by lot of base materials, none of which takes away the centre stage from the floral bouquet that I’m trying to create in this chypre.
Neroli and orange blossom absolute takes over from the bergamot – slowly taking it towards a sweeter spectrum. There is a lot of red champaca, gardenia and rose (otto and abs) in it – a lot! I like the heady interaction between gardenia and red champaca, whilst the Persian rose otto lends its ‘green creaminess’ and the Turkish rose provides a more floral intensity. Lavender abs and jasmine sambac evokes freshness and indoles respectively in this floral andante. As usual civet’s impact is quite influential – the marginal benefit of having and adding some civet is just too big to avoid!
In the dry down I can detect leathery sweetness from a Chittagong oud and animalics (from castoreum and hyrax) and dryness from tobacco, which seem to go quite nicely with two ouds and buddha wood – improving the overall radiancy of the attar. I used a white ambergris to open up the spectrum. Interestingly, I can detect this sea-gold from the bottle (smell of fresh sea breeze), but not on my skin. However, it serves its main purpose – diffusion of other oils for longer time, especially florals.
There is a glaring omission in this chypre - labdanum. As much as I love it, it can take over from almost every strong/base material, let alone from the relatively soft florals I have used in it. But the sweetness, leather, and musky notes are taken care of very nicely by tobacco, Thai oud, and two hays, ambrette seeds - albeit with less intensity.
I used two hay oils – one adding a slightly sweet hay note (similar to the one I get from Thai Honey) and the other adding a slightly toffee like honey notes - thus slight reducing the astringency (dryness) further that is coming from oakmoss, myrrh and tobacco. The frankincense, myrrh and benzoin add some depth, without drawing attention away from the central theme. I had to be quite careful as adding too much of these resins can move it towards a more incense-oriented attar (may be that’ll be my next one). Finally, it has a gorgeously creamy sandalwood oil in its base, distilled from 75+ years old trees from Karnataka.
The best part of this attar is that the orris resinoid and oakmoss stays from the top to the dry down with various intensities whilst interacting with various florals – mostly playing like a cello/violin in the fore- and back-ground, along with a sweet and powdery ambrette seed absolute from France. BTW, this oakmoss is the full-on classic one, not that IFRA-compliant simpleton.
I asked my wife what word does pop into her head when she wore it for the first time – dark, radiant, woody or sweet. She said ‘radiant’ and I felt the same way! Hence the name and the attar in its current stage – a floral bouquet.
Time to let it age for few weeks. Thank you for reading such a long and annoying description (I really did not want to delete the text) lol. In the mean time, please feel free to suggest any tweaks.
NOTES
Top: Bergamot, Butter CO2, nutmeg abs.
Heart: Gardenia, J. sambac abs, lavender abs, neroli, orange blossom abs, Persian rose otto, red champaca, and Turkish rose abs.
Base: Ambrette seed abs, Austrian and Spanish hays, benzoin, buddha wood, castoreum, civet abs, frankincense, hyraceum, myrrh CO2, orris resinoid (22% iron), oakmoss abs (non-IFRA), sandalwood (S. India), Thai Honey (Le Maison Khenata, 2017), and Chittagong (2016) [two ouds], tobacco, vanilla abs, and white/grey ambergris (s. albam macerated).
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. Once I was of the view that attar is meant to be the blend of two or three oils. Now I have to change, and I myself will go to mix more than ten ingredients. 
