Tag Archives: attar

Discovering attars

Perfume thoughts May 20, 2010 Comments: 4

I might have been a bit wrong on the Al Mas by Amouage and Sedra by Haramain being the same. Similar, but not the same. And now I don’t know how to proceed. Attars are a completely new area for me and I seem to have ideas regarding attars that are wrong. 🙂 Well, they were right for the first 3 I tried, and then I tried Attar Mubakhar and it turned into this soapy, sea-like thing (which I seriously don’t like and enjoy) but after a while it really wasn’t that bad (as in smelling too much of soapy sea) and I can start with that.

It turns out (at least for me), attars are shapeshifters. Usually with perfumes you can guess where they might evolve and what you might expect. But all the attars surprised me (pleasantly I must say), including the sea one. That was a real surprise.

Anyway, I thought that attars were all dark and had this desert-like base, dry but at the same time full-bodies, arid and spicy. Strange actually. I really need (and want) to experience the desert.

So, I decided to try Sedra and Al Mas at the same time to compare them and see if my initial thought were correct. Of course, it would be extremely inconvenient to have these 2 smelling the same for such a wide money difference. Honestly, I lean toward Al Mas. 🙂 But that’s probably because Sedra displays more rose than Al Mas and I’m still not a fan of rose.

First off, let me say that most of attars I tried (less than 10 so far) are these oudish, rose, dark thingies. So, no wonder I thought smelling them apart that Sedra and Al Mas were the same. The truth is, smelling them side by side, Sedra starts more bitter (as in rose) and oudish than Al Mas. I would never thought I’d say after my first try of Al Mas that it was mellow, but it was more mellow than Sedra. I thought it had some cedre hints but I was wrong – one of the notes is sandal (that is the most similar I could find). I couldn’t find any notes for Sedra, all I found was that it was oriental and spicy.

When first smelling Al Mas, I thought the rose was prominent enoght but when compared to Sedra, it really does not make any kind of important appearance. This rose in Sedra also makes it more feminine than Al Mas, which seems very unisex and more oudish than Sedra. Also. it seems more competently blended. This sounds wrong now – what I wanted to say is that Al Mas is so round and complete, nothing peeks out strongly while in Sedra I can smell the rose quite well.

And then it started. First, I got this camphor/minty? note in Sedra which I have no idea where it appeared from some 2 hours into application. And then also some fruitiness peeking out. Al Mas remained a warm background on my other arm at that time. And then it hit me for both. They seemed to have blended with me (or more precisely my skin). It was like I rubbed them in, which I didn’t and anyway, that would be obvious from the start if I had done it. My guess is, my skin absorbed it and it just became part of me. I loved that part because I almost never feel the perfume becoming one with me, it is always a part that is with me not me.
I am really glad I have some more attars to try. I don’t think they would make a good choice for
everyday (work) wear but they are something.

This perfume love of mine sometimes scares me

Perfume thoughts May 18, 2010 Comments: 9

Like yesterday for example.

I was home looking for some samples to add to packages and at one point it jus hit me. Oh my god! I have so many samples, they are going to run over me and leave me for dead!

Ok, so maybe not dead but exhausted or just depressed because I don’t see how are they going to run me over if I don’t take them in my hand and try them but there are so many! And the amount is just going to grow and grow. And I have no idea how 80% of them smell like even though I tried them. It really scared me and then I got depressed. Every once in a while I read about one of them and take it out to smell it. If I cannot make my mind, I put it back for another try. But while I’m doing that, I’m also swapping and ordering stuff, and new samples arrive. And find a place to live their life somewhere near me but probably hiding so I wouldn’t find them when I need them (even though I try and put them at places where I’ll be able to find them).

And what happens yesterday? I try looking for stuff that I already put aside for swapping extras and suddenly there are samples wherever I look. They really scared me. I guess we can live in peace if some of them are hiding and I don’t need to be aware of them most of the time.

I think I’ll stop now and not go back to reading what I wrote because just thinking about it makes me sound like a lunatic. 🙂

But! I’m a lunatic with a new perfume fixation. Ok, so it’s not really a fixation, more of an interest in a certian area. Like attars.

I got two Amouage attar samples last week, Al Mas and Homage, and even though attars smell a bit different than what I’m used to, I wanted to try some more and of course, I ordered some.

From Arabian Bazaar. They were the first site that came up when I browsed for attars and they have sample packs (2). So I oredred both (and can I just say I’m their first Croatian customer).

And I got very surprised – I ordered on Thursday (5 days ago) and the package was waiting for me today when I got home. 🙂 Talk about fast.

Of course, there wasn’t much time for testing yet, I just put on 2 of them randomly and turns out one of them smells quite a lot like Al Mas by Amouage (for quite a lot less money). Honestly, it actually smells even better to me (hope lightning doesn’t strike me).

Sedra costs 58$ for 30ml. I couldn’t find Al Mas but Homage is 270 E for 12ml. And for that money, I’m likely to think it’s not compatible with my skin chemistry because otherwise I would have to say it’s really not good (it smelled a lot like I put something pickled on my skin for quite a while until getting relatively normal).

Swapping is so much fun!

Uncategorized May 13, 2010 Comments: 4

I’m a bit late but it took some time to deal with the photos. Yesterday I came home to find 3 packages waiting for me through swapping. The strange thing though is that they were all shipped at different times so I don’t even want to start thinking what do the people in post office do with our packages (I received one some time ago with a shoe imprint on it!).

The first one was from Germany with some Arabian oils I am trying to get to know and a new Italian house for me (and I still don’t know the name – I’m just lousy with new names).


The second one, a more interesting from my perspective because there was some Ava Luxe, DSH, Roja Dove (which unfortunately arrived broken – maybe someone stepped on this one too?) and Van Cleef and Arpels from Canada.


And the last one, which probably seems like the smallest and containing nothing of any interest but you would be very wrong. Because two of the smallest vials contain precious (and by that I mean extremely expensive) drops of 2 Amouage attars (Homage and Al Mas).
Thanks to Susan from USA.

Btw, I really like the word attar, it connotes many things for me without me even knowing what exactly does it mean. 🙂 So I did look it up today and got some basic knowledge on the subject. Just enough to understand that attar does not correlate to smelling oudish (which is what I somehow thought).

This was just a quick post, I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to smelling those attars (everything else as well, but attars are at the top).
Pictures are mine.