Spikenard Magdalena

This is my most favorite perfume in the world! I've had this a few years now and would definitely buy again before I run out. I got it from Israel and I wear it often especially to bed. I adore this perfume! It is a mature perfume but is also a VERY comforting perfume! Believe it or not, even both my little grandsons ask me to spray a bit on their forearms and pillows at night to comfort them and help them to fall asleep. It is just that lovely! Spikenard Magdalena is powdery, spicy and very vintage smelling. I just can't describe this other than a comforting smell of the past. A peaceful place we've been before. I will describe it like my 9 year old grandson describes it. He says when I put it on him he feels like he's in a big old two story house with creaky floors. There's a little old woman with beautiful perfume on that fills a fuzzy, cozy, warm living room. She is rocking by a fireplace with a little dog curled on a rug by the fire and there's a thunderstorm outside. It smells like that...a fuzzy, warm feeling. Yes, I agreed with him wholeheartedly! It is just that lovely and just as he describes it!

This is not really about the iris or cinnamon. It is not even that cola myrrh. I would describe this as a deep, rich, full musk that has a resinous and sweet note. The notes combine to be round and rich. This wears more like a fragrance oil. It is lovely and unlike anything I own in my 600-bottle collection. I would classify this as a musk though. If you are looking for prominent iris, this is not an iris fragrance. That note lends a roundness to the scent that softens and blends it.

Hard to find but worth the effort and money.

This is a very intriguing Perfume-with-a-capital-P which is also a great bang for the buck. I don’t get cinnamon, myrrh, or iris per se, and definitely no nard like I’ve ever smelled. A dark and mysterious retro floral-resin oriental blend which smells familiar yet unique. Smells like it came straight out of the 1970s or 1980s in its complexity and construction but appears to be manufactured new! I acquired this only recently when on a cinnamon kick. Astonishingly, this is my MOST COMPLIMENTED fragrance. Multiple guys (mostly 50, 60 year olds) ask what it is and where to buy it for their wives/girlfriends. As mentioned below, you buy this from Three Arches directly via their website. Very reasonably priced and comes in multiple formats. A treasure!

This is very interesting. The historical significance alone makes this a must have as a lover of fragrance and a Christian. Having said that, I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. Reading the notes I should love this but this doesn’t smell like a perfume, more like a unrefined perfume oil inside perfumers’ alcohol. Don’t buy this if you’re looking for a resinous amber fragrance. This is a musk bomb! There is a note in this that makes this smell very stinky. Extremely animalic and indolic! I did some research and it’s probably coming from the sumbul oil which has a “musky and animalic” like odor and spikenard (nard) is also musky. After the very pungent opening, I smelled an indolic Jasmine which is strange because this has Iris- this is not the waxy, lipstick Iris. It’s floral and indolic and musky. In the mids this starts to become more “wearable” the myrrh is the backbone but again it smells unrefined or crude. I dunno, there is no elegance or finesse that one would smell in modern perfumery. That doesn’t make this bad, just different. It dries down powdery and musty like an old, beloved book with years fragrancing the pages. No “cola like” resinous myrrh. No waxy lipstick iris, no sweet amber to be found here. More like an ancient wooden house, full of stale incens and animalic fecal funk.