Tiger Bright

Anjali described this perfume on her website "This is an intense, woody perfume with a notable bitterness of tobacco. It is minimally floral with gentle Jasmine to give balance to the bitterness. Black pepper and cloves are pronounced at the start, thorn-sharp. Long after, sandalwood emerges—a warm memory of wilderness." It's definitely worth mentioning her inspiration, because it can be felt in the perfume: "Nagpur, my hometown in India is close to the well-known tiger reserves of Pench, Tadoba, and Navegaon. To go into a jungle, into the tiger's territory, is an unforgettable experience. Just the resounding roar is enough to make one feel the power of this magnificent animal. You come back from such journeys with a deep appreciation for our planet and its creatures. For me, this was the hardest perfume to create. I wanted to capture the feel of summer, the woods, the smell of dry leaves, and the heat of central India. I used some jasmine sambac in this perfume because this amazing flower blooms in the early morning and cools the soul, ahead of the intense heat of the day. But I did not want this perfume to be floral. Even after many trials I felt that the perfume needed je ne sais quoi. I kept the perfume aside for a few days, and instead, in my mind, I went back to the region, the season, and the memory of the place, to see if it could give me some ideas. I thought of the piercing cry of the Koel—the Indian cuckoo. The call of this bird is as sweet as the mangoes themselves. (Listen to the bird call here.) Perhaps I needed something sharp and sweet like that call. My hometown, Nagpur, is also called 'Orange City', because this region is one of the biggest orange farming areas. So, the "sharp and sweet" was orange perhaps. I added a hint orange. It lifted the deepness of the perfume." My very own experience: I won a Cafleurbon contest with samples of each of Anjali's three perfumes. They are all beautiful, high quality fragrances that show the depth and complexity of the inspirations they draw upon. Tiger Bright opens with a fresh light clean citrus, sparkling (not aldehydic), clean musk. It's not as heavy as I would have expected on skin, compared to the paper strip and the sprayer cap. I get clean leather and a hit of cinnamon, and as it starts to warm/heat up, bright ginger! Instead of animalic, it leans more papery, and cerebral, but certainly not cold. This is quickly becoming a love.

Tiger Bright gives me that sensation that I am recalling memories from a past life lived, a yearning to return to a place that I never visited, an odd melancholy that I don't mind feeling. The smoky, rooty cypriol is most notable here, accompanied, by a powdery and musky turmeric. Underlined with a tobacco and vetiver, it feels like a kind of agrestic that I would imagine could be in the ether of some place on the Indian subcontinent. It makes me yearn to travel, whether in space or in time. It's so very evocative yet feels just beyond my grip. It's easily one of the best woody fragrances in recent years, in my opinion. Transportive.

Wow! I’m not sure how to describe this one but it’s definitely a fragrance that needs to be experienced on skin. On paper I get a peppery cedar chest but on skin the citrus sings. It’s warm and woody and spicy and unlike anything I’ve ever smelled. It smells like nature, like the outdoors, like comfort, like something familiar but wholly new. I suspect I will be coming back to this one as it’s hard to forget. Beautiful.

In halls of cedar and cypress, vetiver traces a map in sharp strokes. In the shadows, leather guards ancient secrets, pepper sparks like flint on stone. Then - at the perfect moment, revelation: when sun meets crystal - hold aloft the light of spice through smoked glass. Turmeric and coriander illuminate what was always there and mark an X in gold. The fragrance hovers like illuminated dust - austere yet radiant, earthbound yet strangely weightless.