Al Majmua
Areej le Doré (2022)

This is another one that I like from the current collection. Al Majmuah, to me, is an ultra green version of Musk Lave and a clever Indian take on the fougere genre.

I don't know what pandanus or kadam smell like, but they must contribute to the overall greenness along with the Ruh Khus/oak moss. It almost approaches galbanum in that it's so green that it turns my stomach a bit (not a bad thing). The mid gets fuzzy and musky with the iris and oak moss (which always blurs mixtures). The mid and drydown are really nice so if you missed out on Musk Lave and love green fragrances, this one is worth checking out.

Al Majmua is based on the famous majmua attar, a traditional Indian blend of four other already-distilled attars and ruhs, namely, ruh khus (vetiver root), ruh kewra (pandanus, or pandan leaf), mitti attar (a distillation of hand-made clay bowls), and kadam attar (distilled from the small, yellow bushy flowers of the Anthocephalus cadamba). Together, these attars combine to mimic the lush, earthy fragrance of India during the rainy season. In Al Majmua, it is the green, foresty tones of the ruh khus that dominate, at least at first. Its rugged, earthy aroma smells like the roots of a tree dipped into a classic men’s fougère, something green and bitter enough to put hairs on your chest. In fact, there is a chalky galbanum-like note here that links Al Majmua, at least superficially, with the front half of Incenza Mysore.

But what I love about majmua attars, and hence also about Al Majmua, is that the juicy-sharp bitterness of the opening tends to soften into an earthy, dusty bitterness – nature’s slide, perhaps, from vetiver root to mitti. This earthy, aromatic aroma is complex and ever-shifting, sometimes letting the slightly minty yellow floral of the kadam attar peek through, sometimes the piercing, fruity-vanillic, yet funky aroma of pandanus leaf (kewra attar), which Russian Adam has cleverly accentuated by adding a cat-pissy blackcurrant up front. But what really predominates is the earthy wholesomeness of soil and dust, emphasized with patchouli, and given a spicy, armpitty warmth by a sturdy cedarwood in the base that believes itself to be a musk of some sort. Though the notes don’t include musk or even a naturally musky material like costus, there is an aspect to Al Majmua that smells like the creamed, stale skin at the base of a woman’s neck.

What I admire the most about Al Majmua is the way that the perfumer chose to simply frame the majmua attar at the center (since it is a complex-smelling thing in and of itself) and then arrange other, complementary materials around it to draw out and emphasize certain aspects of the attar’s character. For example, a silvery-powdery iris is placed in just the right place to highlight the dustiness of mitti, the cedarwood to underline the majmua’s slight bodily funk, the patchouli to draw even longer 5 o’ clock shadows under the jaw of the ruh khus, and so on. Fresh over animalic. Earthy but not pungent. Imagine Green Irish Tweed sprayed over a deer musk attar that faded down a long time ago. Indians love majmua attars for their complex, aromatic character and so do I, but I like Al Majmua the best when it is almost done. Because, just as the slow, gentle fade-to-grey starts to happen, there is a magnificent moment where the natural sandalwood smells like – similar to some parts of Musk Lave and Jicky – idealized male skin. Meaning, skin after a hot shave, application of an old-fashioned but honest sandalwood tonic (Geo F. Trumpers, say), and then an hour of gentle exertion in the cold air.