Magie du Désert

This perfume transported me to an alternate universe, life and time, where I lived and worked at a trading post on the edge of the world. My home and the community was built of cedar logs and surrounded by sky high cedar posts acting as protection for those within. There was a guard tower at the top of the wooden barrier that I would man (or woman) to keep look out and to sound the alarm if any raiders were spotted that might try and steal our bounty inside. The tower was located between the tannery and the church, where whiffs of incense would float up to me during services. It had seemed like any other day when I left my home to take my turn as watch on the wall. Little did I know that the next wave of looters had a secret weapon they were about to employ on me. As usual, I arrived at the tower at dusk. It was a particularly arid evening, with a slight breeze coming from the east, bringing with it the smell of something strange, yet alluring. I closed my eyes while I breathed the new aroma in deeply, savoring its piquant and peppery facets. I still could smell the cedar bastion and the contents within it's walls, so when those smells mingled with the spicy breeze, it took me so off guard, that I left my post and wandered into the desert to follow the enticing odor. When I finally opened my eyes and turned around I was stunned to see the fort had been attacked, raided and burned down so fast there was nothing left but ash, spice and sand to remind me to never follow my nose with my eyes closed again. That's the visual this fragrance gives me, all dry cedar, spices, incense, wood smoke with a leathery animalic nuance. The dab I put on from my sample lasted me over 14 hours, but wasn't a beastly nose rocket for projection; it was more polite than that. If you like Andy Tauer's L`Air du Desert Marocain, Kerosene's Broken Theories and the like, you might want to follow your nose, with open eyes, to somewhere you can check it out....

Well, this is the main and the major take when European companies wants to stimulates the desert atmosphere. Pepper, sour dates, patchouli, cedar, pink pepper, cardamom, and saffron. Quite repetitive, and it will sell big. It's not a bad take, but it's quite repetitive, AND overly expensive for such a creation, 180+ Euros for 75ml! you can get 100ml of "Across Sands" by Maison Martin Margiela for 120 Euros. Edit (5th Dec 2017) The colder it goes the more leather it become with HINTS of dates as of sweetness, the cranberries also adds another sweet factor but above them all it's the European type of oud in here, slight patchouli, and some fair doses of cloves. After all it's oudi and very Arabian when it comes to classification, and i believe it's the type of spices used in here that made it go in the Arabian direction! the cardamom, cloves, patchouli, and sweeten it with cinnamon and dates. It is fairly done, but i still see it's over priced.