Al Hajar al Aswad Khaltat by Abdul Samad Al Qurashi

Al Qurashi is one of the most exquisit arabian perfume houses. Just the visit of their shop is inspiring, captivating and gives you a feeling being in a nostalgic royal surrounding. Everyone who has visited their shop know what I am talking about. The interior is very classy and what I love most are the big glass perfume bottles overdrawn with gold and hand painted flowers where the pure oil perfumes are waiting to be decanted.

Al Hajar al Aswad I found thanks to blogger friend Alice. And it was one of the moments which really happen rarely but which I soo love. The first sniff and you are captured.

First of all it is a light oriental and above all sensual and elegant scent. It is soapy but not too much. It is so well composed like a beautifull poem without being low-brow at all. It is very silent but deep.
The ingridients are: soft amber, oud, rose taifi and musk.
But the interesting thing is that all these ingridients already sound so heavy that I would not expect any of it apart from the musk. The musk is encasing all the notes from the beginning till the end. And the end is very far as it is a long lasting scent.

At moments it reminds me on Eau de Marveilles by Hermes but Hermes is loud, for my taste dissonant and posess an artificial weight which you can find in the most western oriental perfumes!

1 Tola(12ml) perfume oil = AED 800/USD 217 (when you buy 1tola you get 1 free)
100 ml Perfume Spray = AED 130/USD 35

Al Hamra by Arabian Oud

Al Hamra perfume oil is a fruity floral ultra light and smooth fragrance for women. It is one of the most famous arabian pefumes worldwide as it was in the nominees list at the FIFI Awards in 2006 for the best perfume in the world.

Top Notes: Apple Blossom
Heart Notes: Rose, Jasmine, Lilac
Base Notes: Himalayan Balsam Flower, Musk

It is a very smooth and fresh fragrance which I would recommend for a day use as it is light, gently sweet and close to skin.
In the beginning you smell the apple, green apples. Afterwards the apple scent is gonna minimized and mixed with all the flowers. The Himalayan Balsam Flower give it a cool touch and is damping the sweetness and the musk also,  very smoothly gives it the soft oriental touch in the background.

Wearing Al Hamra you have the feeling, walking bare-footed in the morning dew through an orchard  full of apple trees with the several flowers all arround.

The special about Al Hamra is not just the fragrance but its interesting package. The bud which is holding the precious flacon.
It's a very nice gift idea as well as a beautifull decoration for your home.

Amouage - Attar Homage

Amouage - Attar Homage

The perfume brand Amouage originally from Sutanate of Oman enjoy great popularity all over the world.

There are editions of Eau de Parfum for man and woman and............not that famous Amouage Attar.

As I could not find a suitable scent for myself among the famous Eau de Parfum (already tested Lyric, Dia, Gold, Reflection, Epic, Jubilation IIV - review will follow soon) I came across the Attar collection and ordered my first sample: Amouage - Attar Homage.

Just to let you know up front: it is gorgeous!

The house Amouage created Homage for their 25th jubilee and the professional critics were great. So it made me even more curious to test it!

So perfumeur Christoph Chong created a floral scent with the main accent on Taifi rose which is very popular in the Gulf region for its fully and romantic sense.
To fill one bottle of 12ml perfume oil there are used roses of one whole yard. But there are also ingridients arround this wonderfull rose which make the wonderfull composition: silver frankincense, orange, jasmin, amber, oud, lemon and sandlewood.

The fragrance is so smooth and fresh and I would declare it as soft-oriental as it is not heavy in any way. It is a scent which everyone even in the West can wear daily. It is very pricey: 12ml = €270 but it is absolutelly worth. And you have to consider that you need even a drop to smell intesivelly the whole day long.

It is declared as unisex, though I can not imagine it on a man!

SoOud - new fragrance line EAST meets WEST

SoOud is a luxury niche perfume house founded by the famous perfumer Stephan Humbert Lucas in 2010. Since perfume is king of the Orient, Stéphane Humbert Lucas has created soOud to celebrate their heady scents by blending their olfactory exuberance with the refinement of French perfumery.

The name is maybe a reference to the Saoud royal family from Saudi Arabia. By a happy cooincidence it has the word "oud" inside, an olfactory reference to oudh.
SoOud is the hidden essence of oriental beauties and unknown harems, but also a harem of oriental scents (not very known to the western nose). It is intended as "a jewel on the skin and the perfume of inner beauty" and all of them contain agarwood in high concentration.

The oriental veil niqab served as an inspiration of mystery and beauty. Though on many online shops I could read that the brand Sooud deny the coherence to the idiological background! :-SSSSSSSSSS
What to say Islamophobia doesn't miss even in fragrances!!!

There are eight new fragrances which were launched in 2010 from Sooud and last week finally it was possible to get them in Germany. I had the chance to test three of them and I can say it is absolutelly following the current trend: East meets West! Eastern ingridients in french-way compositions!

Here are the eight fragrances of Sooud (the ones I tested will be commented thereunder):

Al Jana

Al Jana is a natural green fragrance with notes of thyme, star anise, helichrysum, ylang-ylang, cypress, cedar, vetiver, sandalwood, tonka and clary sage.

Asmar

Asmar is the dusty scentof earth and sun, tanned skin and sand. It is a scent of amber, strong yet delicate due to its warm notes. Notes: bergamot, white honey, roasted coffee, amber cigar, grape marc, amber, tobacco leaf, suede, musk and vanilla. Dorian Gray meets Scheherazade ...

Burqa

Burqua perfume is like pure blood, Chinese ink and and bewitched essences of dark wood Prestigious and elegant, it contains notes of jasmine, rose, black violet, cardamom, sage, benzoin, myrrh, black ink, rubber sap, black amber, patchouli, Guaiac wood, oud and teck.

Burqa is a very spicy scent but it has a balsamic softness. Very interesting! But in the heart note it reminds me too much of Miss Cherie - Dior! Not my taste!

Fam

Fam (Mouth) is an intensive and flamboyant perfume of red spices combined with warm woody tones and powdery floral aromas. This sophisticated fragrance exudes all the charms of agar wood, with additional notes of saffron, chili, roses, cashmere, rose powder, rubber sap, vinyl accord, sandalwood, cedar, milk and red musk.

Hajj

Hajj ("Sage"), created around noble notes, reveals fresh spices on the background of warm tones. The scent of wisdom and spirituality, it is made of bergamot, candied mandarin, star anise, rosewood, osmanthus, licorice, ginger, patchouli, tolu balsam, tobacco leaf and vetiver.

Kanz

Kanz (Treasure) is black as coal, tough and tactile; a strange combination of opacity and transparency; the smell of agar worthy of Maharajas. Note: Sambac jasmine, Bulgarian white rose essences of nagarmotha, agar and Indian sandalwood.

Kanz is in my opinion the best and most interesting of these three I have tested. It is a soft, oudy scent and if I would have to choose a color to describe it I would take white like the white rose and jasmin which you can nicely notice here.

Nur

Nur or 'Light "is a pearly - powdery scent of amber; precious, elegant and refined. It contains notes of lemon, incense, artemisia, chamomile, cedar, apricot, orris root, musk, amber, Russian leather and vanilla from Madagascar.

Ouris

Ouris ("sublime") is a symphony of butterfly colors, which include notes of peach, plum and blackcurrant, sweet Turkish delight, jasmine, almond and pollen. This beautiful feminine palette contains additional notes of honey, tagetes, jasmine, white cedar, iris, sandalwood, vanilla and tonka.
For me Ouris is a fruity-honey compostition where I smell the plum and peach at first and the sandlewood gives a soft oriental note - interesting for summertime!