.
Post by Trésor
.
I have a fascination with gold. To me there is something so powerfully mesmeric about the opulent splendor of visions graced by the hand of Midas. Anything from the lustrous sheen of a treasured piece of jewelry to the scintillating hue of a lover’s skin bathed in a radiant aura of summer sunlight, just before the star collapses into dusk. I am enraptured. For ages I’ve been on a ravenous hunt for fragrances which mirror the essence of this exquisite ore and very few have fully realized my desire. Very few except for Mamluk.
Mamluk by Sonia Espelta and Laura Santander for Xerjoff 2012
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Musk, osmanthus, jasmine, amber, benzoin, vanilla, bergamot, agarwood (oud), honey, caramel
Mamluk opens in a most extraordinarily ebullient sequence of rich, highly sacchariferous honey and a lemon who’s skin seems almost bio-luminescent in its vivid incandescence. It is a prismatic pas de deux, illuminated citron trapezing alongside the toothsome honey’s molten gold as if in a cosmic light show. There is a fleeting animalic undercurrent, the very faintest whiff of urinous vapors making way for scintillating flashes of an almost candied oud.
Photo Stolen Flickr
This is not the challenging, fecal oud found by the tola in prolific collections of connoisseurs but oud envisioned as an utter confectionery delight. Beneath the oud lay a bed of blossoming jasmine flowers, their indolic form bathed in the oozing fluid luxuriance of decadent and flowing caramel. It’s sumptuous amber hue held in glorious juxtaposition with narcotic white petals, all the while maintaining a perpetual radiance which never quite disappears despite being ensconced in an exorbitantly dulcet density.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
As the composition progresses your sensory experience is permeated with the dazzling facets of a beautiful crystalline musk that calls to mind the scent of salty, sun soaked skin but as seen through the fractured light of broken crystal. It bounces and refracts in the most peculiar way that leaves me in a state where I am transfixed, my wrist glued to my nose. The hours pass and the composition gains a speherical quality and becomes exquisitely diffuse until finally it registers at a faint hum of honeyed sweetness just above the skin.
Photo Stolen DeviantArt
A word to the wise: this is one potent elixir so I implore you not to go guns blazing with the atomizer. A single spray (or two if you’re a hedonist like me) will do, trust me. When I first received my bottle I sprayed at least 6 times and thought I just might just drown in those gilded, thrashing tides of honey. This darling has quite a gorgeous, fairly powerful sillage and wears like iron. I get a good ten to twelve hours, quite impressive if I do say so myself.
Further reading: Kafkaesque and Perfume Posse
First In Fragrance have €247/50ml
Surrender To Chance have samples starting at $7/.5ml
So tell me, my sweet honeybees, what are your favourite fragrances for those who’ve an appetite for the olfactory manifestation of this precious ore?
Trésor xx
Australian Perfume Junkies 