Attar/Mukhallat of the Day

[Zuah1]

On this blessed day of Jummah, as I stand in the tranquil and spiritual atmosphere of Madinah at the Prophet’s Mosque, I am adorned with the opulent fragrance of Sultan Suleiman from Scent Talks. This luxurious perfume oil encapsulates the grandeur and majesty of its namesake, transporting me to the golden courts of ancient empires with each elegant note.

The scent opens with the intoxicating allure of Taif Rose and Jasmine, instantly immersing me in a regal garden, filled with the most delicate, refined florals. These floral notes, so delicate yet commanding, rise gracefully from a base of warm Amber and Sandalwood, grounding the scent in a deep, velvety richness that whispers stability and power.

The fragrance grows more complex with time, as exotic Saffron and aged Vetiver add an earthy depth that feels both ancient and timeless. Musk wraps the composition in a sensual warmth, drawing me deeper into its refined allure, creating a balance between elegance and mystery.

But what truly sets Sultan Suleiman apart is its dual blend of exquisite Cambodian and Hindi Ouds. This rare combination infuses the fragrance with an unmatched richness, capturing the essence of ancient royalty. The smoky, woody depth of these ouds lingers powerfully, yet is softened by the mesmerizing floral undertones, evoking both authority and grace.

Wearing Sultan Suleiman on such a sacred day, in such a holy place, enhances the experience of reflection and reverence. This is not merely a scent, but a statement of sophistication, wealth, and heritage. It carries the spirit of a Sultan—radiating power, mystery, and timeless elegance.

 

[Mr.P]

@Shiningrobes so cool you know of it, i think a highly underrated aromatic... matched with an aged patchouli would be so wonderful, great idea

Lavandula stoechas flowers are such strange beasts. I have an absolute but not the essential oil - the description at Eden sounds very appealing... have to remember to order a sample.

An oil I would love to smell would be L. dentata - those plants have really beautiful flowers that kind of look like you would expect a hybrid of stoechas and regular lavender to look ... and with a woody/resin/lavender scent that I find really appealing. Beautiful plant to grow in your garden if the climate is suitable

 

[Mousse de Chene]

Tibetan Musk Pure Parfum - Ensar Oud.

This is one of my favourite spray perfumes, initially purchasing the 2nd version in 15ml & then subsequently tracking down the first batch in 30 ml. There’s hardly any difference, perhaps the first version is slightly more Musky, while the second highlights more of the Sandalwood facet.

Tibetan Musk is inspired by classical French perfumery, it’s an Oriental Amber Fougere in a similar wheelhouse as Hertiage by Guerlain or Creeds - Bois du Portugal, yet a darker more elevated version of both. A gentlemanly masculine perfume, it reminds me of something my father would’ve worn.

A bright Lavender top note, green, flowers, chocolatey aged Musk, Spices, Oakmoss, Mysore Sandalwood, Labdanum, Vanilla, Frankincense. Highly complex & very well blended, rounded, dense yet sings off the skin beautifully! The slightly animalic, ambery, mossy, musky, powdery dry down lasts forever emitting a refined sillage.

One of Ensar’s finest perfumes, a truely pleasing experience. I wear it anywhere & any time of the year.

 

[Mr.P]

I just applied a swipe of ruh khus from @Al Shareef Oudh. I've had this for a while and I think I wrote a brief review of it earlier. This one has its own personality and is distinct in a few ways. I am still learning the ruh khus profile so I have literally no real understanding of what this "should" smell like. Here is what I notice:

1) completely clear / transparent. Many ruh khus oils I have seen are milky / translucent but not transparent like this one.

2) strong presence of a smooth appealing waxy note that was also present in Royal Bengal Oud's wild Bangladesh vetiver oil

3) profile is more "oud like" than i am accustomed to - much less of the pungent starchy / raw potato / asparagus scent than I expected. It has a very nice balance and relatively restrained presence.

4) no strong metallic scent thank goodness


I really like this material. I'm a fan of vetiver but usually when I apply vetiver "neat" it's just screaming "VETIVER" so loudly for so long that my ability to enjoy the experience is diminished a bit. This one, applied neat, is able to have a pleasant conversation with you about vetiver so to speak. This is kind of the clean Pursat of vetiver, relative to my collection. Very nice stuff I would love to hear how a Khus connoisseur would interpret the profile!

 

[Shiningrobes]

Lavandula stoechas flowers are such strange beasts. I have an absolute but not the essential oil - the description at Eden sounds very appealing... have to remember to order a sample.

An oil I would love to smell would be L. dentata - those plants have really beautiful flowers that kind of look like you would expect a hybrid of stoechas and regular lavender to look ... and with a woody/resin/lavender scent that I find really appealing. Beautiful plant to grow in your garden if the climate is suitable

The one from Eden is what I have. I like lavender but it’s been so abused as a mask for unpleasant smells that i associate it with those. Most lavenders have an almost ammonia/ pee scent in their opener, even really good ones. I like EBs lavender absolute as well because it doesn’t have that lavender/ lavandula sprayed on top of mildew stank. That’s why I love the Seville lav. It doesn’t really smell like lavender as much as its own thing. I haven’t tried it with cedar but I imagine they would compliment each other. I really want to try it with the Fleur de Cuir, Osmanthus/ cedar codistillation from Fraterworks to play up the fruity leather aspects of both.

 

[Mr.P]

And another...

Blue lotus "emanation" distilled by Chaitman, came my way thanks to Wardlab 😢 This is that particular specimen that people were going bananas about a while back… I didn't tune into the threads at the time. Emanation is Chaitman's term for what is traditionally called an "absolute oil" (which is NOT the same as an absolute believe it or not).

According to Arctander, an absolute is what is produced by the solvent extraction process, while an "absolute oil" is is an oil distilled from the absolute. I don't think this terminology ever became commonplace because these materials are not very often seen on the market. Calling it an absolute oil is bound to confuse people because it sounds almost the same as calling it an absolute. Perfume terminology gets a little bonkers.

So I will just call it what it is… Oil distilled from solvent-extracted absolute.

Anyway the story I heard is that this one smells very different from the other attempts to distill lotus from absolute by chaitman and others, and became sought after because of its unique character. I know there's a fair amount of confusion when it comes to identifying Lotus so I'm not sure if it's a positive or a negative that it doesn't match other attempts. Does that mean it's not lotus at all? Or were the other ones not lotus? Or a unique cultivar? A mystery

The oil smells musky, in a way like the old furniture polish that my parents used to use when I was a kid. Maybe the residue of 1970's lemon pledge... or some other brand. there was some kind of musky/sickly smell on the tables after they were polished that this immediately brings to mind so it's a little bit nostalgic in that respect. Seems like it would be very useful for adding musky top notes to a perfume.

Behind this obvious musky layer is a complex balanced pungent herbal/floral bouquet with a hint of nutmeg. Very interesting as an outlier aromatically. Not something I would wear in public but something I would love to have an ounce of to add novel effects to perfume. It's always nice to experience experimental materials like this - things that push the envelope a little bit.

 

[Ahmaoud]

I’m fascinated by the chemistry of synthetic aroma molecules. Obviously nothing can compete with the richness & pure beauty of natural materials, however! As a lover of all perfume genres, especially classical French perfumery, it goes with the territory.
I have zero issue unless I’m being sold a perfume/attar that’s reported to be 100% natural, and it actually contains synthetics.

Thanks for your offer of help brother, I’ll definitely be needing it when I place an order. I’m just waiting on Ahmaoud to recommend a Ghaliyah….

My sincere apologies for the incredibly late reply, @Mousse de Chene and @Saudalhajri, work was being unpleasant and exhausted the entirety of my bandwidth. Each of the Ghaliyas has varying amount of precious animalics used, for me this doesn't matter a whole lot since they're filtered and we don't get a quantity of "clay" (a term used for soaked sediment of musk and ambergris) with each bottle.

After smelling all of them there's only one which I consider a must have, that would be Ghaliya Saudia (غالية السعودية). It has no equal in the collection when it comes to projection, longevity or beauty of scent. It's also the only one which I believe both musk and ambergris were used in, some have only musk used and some only ambergris ... actually I might be mistaken Ghaliya Taif might have both, but there's a fruity note in that which doesn't fit the erudite profile I imagine a Ghaliya having. Ghaliya Riyadh is my second favorite, it literally has ground cardamom in the bottle as sediment, it's more modern smelling than the rest. Ghaliya Daariyah has notes of clove mixed with the cardamom and musk, by the way all of these are built on top of an in house Trat oud called Trat Firewood. Ghaliya Daarein is primarily oud and ambergris, it's projection isn't the greatest so it didn't score highly with me. Lastly while the last three I mentioned are very nice and could be recommended, Ghaliya Taif just isn't my cup of tea, too fruity for my tastes.

As to the question brother Saud asked, I've tried almost everything they had, so let me know if you want an idea of what something smells like. Overall there wasn't an oud oil I disliked, each has been processed carefully to meet the standard of a unique profile, they're not simply fresh plantation oils packaged up and sold. Many can't compare with the artisanal offerings we've grown used to, but I still like them quite a bit. There's a reasonable amount of complexity paired with longevity, price and the fact the founder uses himself in much of the marketing material, which gives me confidence. Though I have to stress, these are oils are catered to a different audience, for others reading this, be careful with blind buying, especially if you've gotten your nose accustomed to very high grade distillations. Lastly be careful with customs, they can come up to quite a bit on these orders ... so keep that in mind.

 

[Mr.P]

I just swiped a bit of @Al Shareef Oudh Taif rose oil. What a treat! All kinds of fresh sparkling tantalizing rose notes in delicate balance. I've only smelled a couple of other taif rose oils so I am just learning what sets this type of rose apart from others. There's a particularly appealing type of citrus, fresh crisp apple, very appealing to the nose up close and in little wafts. Happy to smell none of the sweaty / slight ferment note that some rose oil has (possibly caused by too much delay between picking and distilling from what I read). There's a kind of mid register citrus aspect in addition to the brighter citrus and it is really engaging. Like sniffing a fat oil laden fresh damask rose.

 

[SophMarie]

Tibetan Musk Pure Parfum - Ensar Oud.

This is one of my favourite spray perfumes, initially purchasing the 2nd version in 15ml & then subsequently tracking down the first batch in 30 ml. There’s hardly any difference, perhaps the first version is slightly more Musky, while the second highlights more of the Sandalwood facet.

Tibetan Musk is inspired by classical French perfumery, it’s an Oriental Amber Fougere in a similar wheelhouse as Hertiage by Guerlain or Creeds - Bois du Portugal, yet a darker more elevated version of both. A gentlemanly masculine perfume, it reminds me of something my father would’ve worn.

A bright Lavender top note, green, flowers, chocolatey aged Musk, Spices, Oakmoss, Mysore Sandalwood, Labdanum, Vanilla, Frankincense. Highly complex & very well blended, rounded, dense yet sings off the skin beautifully! The slightly animalic, ambery, mossy, musky, powdery dry down lasts forever emitting a refined sillage.

One of Ensar’s finest perfumes, a truely pleasing experience. I wear it anywhere & any time of the year.

I keep meaning to pop in and say I love EO's Tibetan Musk Ghalia, and find it fairly similar to the PP. As similar as two fragrances can be, given the difference in materials, that is.

It's one of my favorites too.

 

[SophMarie]

I'm sampling @Al Shareef Oudh's Al Bayt Al Ateeq II for the first time. It opens with a deep, gorgeous rose, possibly softened with a touch of musk. After an hour, some smoky oudh notes waft in. I can't wait to learn what happens next.

Edit: One of the loveliest things about a good attar is the way it still lingers on my skin 10 or 12 hours later. I've been buying a lot of fragrances the past few months and I'll often wash the shadows off so I can try another one. But not with a beautiful attar. The incense of Al Bayt Al Ateeq will stay with me until it wears off on its own.

 

[Mr.P]

I just prepared a micro batch (about 3 mL total) of an old recipe for an amber fragrance from Poucher's Perfumes Cosmetics and Soaps. I did not have to substitute much and it's quite interesting. Strongly tonka oriented, supported by bergamot, balsam peru and tolu, sweet orange, rose otto, patchouli, cypress, clary sage, and musk (ambrette seed in this batch). Something very nice about the way the rose otto, bergamot, and the coumarin work together. The literal citrus aspect of the bergamot almost vanishes in the mix, but there's a good amount of it in there and it's doing something because the smell is really quite nice. The cypress oil I used in this is a treat - it's very old (1994), and it was always a base heavy oil (various cypress fractions exist), and now it has thickened and has a really suave muscatel / clary / ambergris aspect mixed in with the aged sap / pitch / resin notes. Cypress oil can be wonderful. Also the transition from the tonka at first to the balsam Peru later is super nice.

 

[Joyoud]

Al Amber the new release from ALD (Arabian Heritage) :
It’s been 2 hours now and it’s exactly as Russian Adam described it: very ANIMALIC ,very bold 😋 Ambergris !
I can’t stop myself sniffing my arm (although you don’t need to) because it’s strong enough to smell it from a distance, I used to sniff my (stored in a jar) raw Ambergris and I can’t get enough from it till today ! I have say that R.Adam did a great job on this one, it’s so beautiful….Salty ,Oceanic, Sunny and very dark at the same time.
It’s my humble opinion and maybe others won’t like it,specially because it’s an animalic bomb.

​

 

[Mousse de Chene]

I'm sampling @Al Shareef Oudh's Al Bayt Al Ateeq IIfor the first time. It opens with a deep, gorgeous rose, possibly softened with a touch of musk. After an hour, some smoky oudh notes waft in. I can't wait to learn what happens next.

Edit: One of the loveliest things about a good attar is the way it still lingers on my skin 10 or 12 hours later. I've been buying a lot of fragrances the past few months and I'll often wash the shadows off so I can try another one. But not with a beautiful attar. The incense of Al Bayt Al Ateeq will stay with me until it wears off on its own.

Al Bayt Al Ateeq II is the only ASO attar I’ve yet to sample, by all accounts its sounds like another masterpiece! Al Shareef ‘s attars are on another level. I really need to get my nose on this one asap.

Have you sampled Khalouq? It’s one of the most beautiful aromas I’ve ever encountered. The most heavenly Musk dominant attar.

 

[Joyoud]

Al Bayt Al Ateeq II is the only ASO attar I’ve yet to sample, by all accounts its sounds like another masterpiece! Al Shareef ‘s attars are on another level. I really need to get my nose on this one asap.

Have you sampled Khalouq? It’s one of the most beautiful aromas I’ve ever encountered. The most heavenly Musk dominant attar.

Sorry I didn’t try Khalouq and to be honest I don’t think I should call this one (Al Amber) an Attar ! It’s all Ambergris and pure Ambergris, yes at the opening you will get some nice breeze, very gentle and smooth as welcome to what it’s coming….. then you find yourself diving in the ocean 🌊 , I just love it.
It’s been few hours now and still strong and beautiful with a hint of vanilla (I know there’s no vanilla there) but this is just the Ambergris playing alone .

 

[Mousse de Chene]

Sorry I didn’t try Khalouq and to be honest I don’t think I should call this one (Al Amber) an Attar ! It’s all Ambergris and pure Ambergris, yes at the opening you will get some nice breeze, very gentle and smooth as welcome to what it’s coming….. then you find yourself diving in the ocean 🌊 , I just love it.
It’s been few hours now and still strong and beautiful with a hint of vanilla (I know there’s no vanilla there) but this is just the Ambergris playing alone .

Although no Vanilla is listed in ASO’s attars (aside from Salsabeel & Samarqand) many of his attars & perfumes have this beautiful signature ambery vanillic dry down. I’m not sure what lends to this effect exactly, but I’m assuming it’s a complex interaction of Ambergris, Oud, Musk, Labdanum etc.
If you get the chance please try his perfume Ishraaq, it’s my favourite spray perfume of all time (aside from Elevation & Al Ghaliyah which were limited additions). Ishraaq is a masterpiece, a classical Arabian masculine perfume; non barn Oud, Rose, Musk & Ambergris with an ambery incensey tobacco leather dry down. In the heart you’ll find a surprising, yet very clever & effective Ylang Ylang note.
A gentlemanly refined beauty!

 

[Saudalhajri]

NTT sandalwood, Ruh Gulab, Nagaland Kalakas oud all in one bottle. I just tried it after blending and it’s already good. I’ll leave it in the drawer for a couple weeks and see how it develops.

 

[SophMarie]

Al Bayt Al Ateeq II is the only ASO attar I’ve yet to sample, by all accounts its sounds like another masterpiece! Al Shareef ‘s attars are on another level. I really need to get my nose on this one asap.

Have you sampled Khalouq? It’s one of the most beautiful aromas I’ve ever encountered. The most heavenly Musk dominant attar.

Khalouq was in the box of ASO samples that arrived Thursday and I’m excited to try it. But I’m afraid that having started with Al Bayt, I won’t be giving the others a try for awhile. Al Bayt has cast a spell over me.

 

[YusaAromatics]

Ghaliyah al Wajd - one of our own ... wooh, gives me a mindbuzz every time i smell it !

 

[Mr.P]

Ghaliyah al Wajd - one of our own ... wooh, gives me a mindbuzz every time i smell it !

Any thing about it you feel comfortable sharing in terms of its composition or presence?

 

[Obada]

Mix of the day:
Fumigated myself with a piece of cultivated hindi oud + A couple of Sprays of Oud Noir (Jinkoh Store)

Oud wafts all around me! 🪵💨