Mirabai

Well this is quite something - a perfume that lives up to the erotic promises of its namesake, Mirabai, purportedly a reincarnation of Radha, who gave herself wholly in spirit to Krishna and so deserted her earthly amorous duties to her mortal husband, a Rajasthani prince. In her feverish devotion to an unattainable love she shares similarities to Aberlard’s Héloïse, forever cloistered away and yet having lots of naughty thoughts and, being erudite enough to commit them to poetry, turns such sexy trivialities into a sublime meditation on the power of SeX and Love. Mirabai, unlike Heloise, never felt the contrite Christian need to repress them though, and thus we have one of the sexiest lines of poetry ever written: ‘ I want you to have this, all the beauty in my eyes, and the grace of my mouth, all the splendor of my strength, all the wonder of the musk parts of my body’ Which perfumer Peter Carter has taken as inspiration for this fragrance and dutifully interpreted in scent, in particular the milky, fecund ‘musk parts’. The opening to me isn’t so much dried fruit as the humidified pong of papaya dripping with honey, garnished with a maraschino cherry 🍒 . It’s a similar animalic honey accord he achieves in his Gaea, except here it’s pushed in a dangerously sweet direction for an hour; Think Turkish confectionery and sticky dates and Shisha rather than crisp refreshing fruit (the fresh Apple in Gaea is truly spectacular). You are plonked in the middle of an Ingres Seraglio and are wallowing neck-deep in musky parts But there is a certain frisson of unavailability if you are a man - look but don’t touch. The rutilance of these notes is sparked by a spicy tannic midrange that keeps it from getting too fleshy, the perfect blend of bitter and sweet. I get a tea note lurking somewhere between the fruits. It lives the remainder of its wonderful life (easily twelve hours and utterly delightful in close quarters) as a powdery floral chypre, dare I say somewhat akin to Grossmith’s Hasu No Hana, Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleu or MDCI’s Chypre Palatin? I’m venturing timidly on sacred perfume ground here, come for me you keepers of the scrolls! It has a very expensive vintage vibe here (which it should - it ain’t cheap) and I’ve never smelled 1960’s Indian Sandalwood before so I can’t vouch for what it’s doing in here, and what proportion of its beauty is attributed to the quality of ingredients overall as opposed to Peter’s skill. But I think it’s a perfume for the ages, and prompts bursts of euphoric ululation from me. I probably should not wear this in public lest anyone thinks I’m having a spontaneous orgasm.

This is easily a 4+ rated with lovely honey and stewed fruits concoction. Not sure where the sandalwood is but must be doing something. 4.3.

This fragrance is all about honeyed dried fruits, ethereal mysterious floral accord, and milky sandalwood. The first thing that hits my nose is actually spikenard and maybe the neroli. Maybe this will be different for you but once you are familiar with spikenard its unmistakable. This only lasts for about 2 minutes and then it disappears though. The most obvious accord in the opening is honey glazed dried fruit. This lasts well into the mid. I imagine apricot and dark berries. The color it gives me is dark orange bordering on red. It will be more fruity and light on paper and denser and muskier on skin. Sandalwood is present throughout the entire development but will become much more noticeable after about half hour. You do get a musky quality that lasts quite a while through the fragrance as well. The longer it develops the more tonka and vanilla will just sweeten the overall aroma. It is all blended together very well because it all kinda of melds into one smell so it's hard to tell exactly what the florals are doing in the composition but maybe I could describe it as adding a dewy but slighty chewy-ness. Sandalwood does tend to be good at absorbing other smells into it. The Sandalwood here is over 60 years old and smooth as could be and milky is the right word for it. Mirabai lasts 14 hours on my skin too. Overall I can say I'm quite pleased to have this in the collection.

Incredible, I smell fruity tea with honey, but the tea is really dried black tea, not your generic green tea smell. The honey has a slightly animalic edge, but nothing sweaty or pissy. It's quite linear, as basically only the fruits go away after a few hours. And it lasts a while, like 20 hours until it's completely gone with 8 hours of strong projection. I don't think this is necessarily groundbreaking, but it's definitely done incredibly well!

Animalic honey, dried fruits, peach, milky tea and hint of blackcurrant. Gorgeous gourmand but too sweet for me. Edit: This was supposed to be a mysore sandalwood-focused fragrance? It's lactonic yes but not in a mysore kind of way.