Ambre de Coco
Areej le Doré (2022)

This one starts out with the blast of peach and civet that Antiquity and Plumeria have. This is isn’t really that appealing to me, but it gives way to a more syrupy resin with a splash of coco, which is a bit more pleasing to my nose. This might be a lighter version of Antiquity, though still stuffy at the top. I don’t really get the spices. It’s powdery, but not as much as I would have expected. The Oud that peaks through is nice, but has a candied feel. I wish AdC would just stay here, with the loudness turned down at the top and letting the Oud speak with whispers of the peach and powder.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the amber. Forget the idea of those cozy-vanillic-resinous ambers like Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens), Amber Absolute (Tom Ford) or Ambre Precieux (Maître Parfumeur et Gantier). This is Indian amber, or what they call shamamatul amber, which is green, mossy, and astringent as hell, as if amber resin was not a resin after all but a stalk of rhubarb or a copper penny. Indian ambers are lean and a bit stern – there is zero fat on their bones. Inside this carnivorous structure, the rest of these 50-odd raw materials flow as a swirl of tastes and impressions rather than identifiable notes. Aromatic grasses mingle with bitter, mossy aromas, wet-smelling herbs, roasted roots, dried berries, calligraphy ink, floral bath salts, and all sorts of dried lichens, leaves, and twigs. It smells more like something a traditional Chinese medicine man would brew up to cure an infection than a perfume.

Now, imagine all this soaked in a rich cocoa powder that softens all the pointy, jangly bits that threaten to poke your eye out, and you get an impression of being plunged into the warm embrace of fur – both animal and human. The cocoa is not at all edible – fold away any expectations you might have of something gourmandy and sweet. Rather, its powdery texture cleverly replicates the stale chocolate bitterness-dustiness that is a natural feature of real deer musk tinctures. Shamama attars and shamama-based perfumes can often be animalic, even when they lean exclusively on plant-based materials (Ajmal’s 1001 Nights being a case in point), relying on the natural funkiness of the aromatics or woods or moss to create something that, in some quarters, might be termed a Parfum de Fourrure (a fur perfume). Here, Ambre de Coco leans a little on oud and ambergris to boost that effect, but in spirit and intent, it joins the ranks of other glorious Indian shamama-inspired perfumes, such as 1001 Nights (Al Lail) by Ajmal and Jardin de Shalimar by Agarscents Bazaar.