Ma Nishtana

I find reading the previous reviews very interesting, firstly to see what those more educated than me in the world of perfumery say, and secondly to see how our different backgrounds and lived experiences change how we might judge a scent. For me, this is - without a doubt - more of a cathedral incense than a buddhist/hindu temple. As far as I can tell, the star of this is the frankincense and myrrh, with the saffron, nutmeg, and clove enriching the incensy vibe. For those who do not know, 'Ma Nishtana', is the beginning of a longer question - 'Why is this night different from all the other nights?' symbolically asked by the youngest attending child at Passover Seder, an important event/ritual in the Jewish calendar. The purpose of asking these questions is to fulfill the biblical duty to relate the story of the Exodus of Jews from Egypt. With this in mind, I think that Prin nailed this fragrance. The scent is beautiful, if a little bit 'static', obviously created with high quality ingredients, and it matches perfectly with the fragrance's description. Not sure what is not to like, perhaps if you can't stand frankincense/myrhh/incense, apart from that this is perfect and very good value for money. 9/10

It opens as a strong, almost burning your eyes cloud of smoke with some myrrh in background. After a couple of minutes since the opening smoke settles and gives the first stage to myrrh+olibanum and one can start smelling all nuances that make this fragrance probably the best creation in its category. Cloves and spices start coming out and play with bitterness of myrrh all amplified by aldehydes. All of that is happening on a smooth, cozy background provided by amber. Ma Nishtana lasts on my skin for around 5-6h and during the first hour can be noticed from a handshake distance before becoming more intimate; which is in my opinion a good thing as I would place it somewhere between austerity of CdG Avignon (that I wouldn't wear in public) and fresh twist of Heeley's Cardinal in terms of how challenging it is.

Ma Nishtana is all about incense. I get reminded of entering a Buddhist temple when I first smell it, it is smoky (frankincense and myrrh) and spicy (cumin, cardamom, clove) with a touch of sweetness to it. It doesn't change much throughout its duration, it becomes less spicy towards the end and smokier. I don't get any rose or sandalwood, just lots of incense. The blending and ingredients are very good quality. Projection is okay for the first hour or two but it is never beastly, after that it stays very close to the wearer. Longevity is about 8-12 hours. I think it is good for spiritual gatherings at night and meditation, very relaxing and non-intrusive.

GORGEOUS!! Wore it to watch lord of the rings lol and i think it was perfect... it's pretty masculine without being like.. cloying or overpowering as most "masculine" sort of perfumes are. but i'd say its unisex. Really really good. it reminds me a bit of a botanica.. i guess there's no direct english translation but basically a spiritual/religious type store, the smokiness but also the really subtle sweetness with the spiciness. i put on so little and it literally lasted so long.. like i think i used less than a third of the vial. LOVE!

One of the best incense perfumes around. Not a traditional church incense, but a kind of mixed general incense - like when various essentials oils are blended with frankincense resin and dried again. Ma Nishtana is powered by a very dry woody element that lasts a many hours and leaves a pleasant dry down. The smoke/ash also adds a realistic element. My favourite Prissana by far - the others are quite difficult to enjoy (apart from Haxen).

A stunning incense fragrance. Frankincense is the focus with support from myrrh and brown spices. There is an ambery feel to it and something slightly 'dirty' such as castoreum and labdanum. It gives the impression of an inviting, warm and rich incense, not cold and dry. Incense is usually not my favourite focus in a fragrance, but if I choose only one I would choose this. Unisex I suppose, though perhaps more fitting on a male.

Spicy.... Is what my wife said first time I wore this. She likes it a lot on me, very masculine not unisex so much. She is usually critical of the incense, oud fragrances I own bit I was surprised she liked it. I love it as well, a real masterpiece. Easy to wear with a pleasant smokey incense take. The easiest to wear in the genre. Very well blended. This also is very versatile, casual or work.

This is a perfect blend between incense and spice. It is a very dry fragrance and extremely wearable. I'm trying it in autumn, but can actually imagine wearing it in all seasons. They are completely different perfumes, but if you like Papillon's Anubis, you will likely enjoy this one as well. They both connect with me on a primal level.

Personally, would have preferred more straight up incense and less Cumin. So far this is one of the smoother ones I have tried from this house, I would easily wear this. Ma Nishtana is cozier than what you would think, more wearable also. Very nice composition but the scent profile is ofcourse not groundbreaking.

This really captivating - smoky, spicy, and subtly sweet. I get an impression of warm incense and spices wafting through cool night air. Definitely has a religious or sacred smelling quality to it as the name implies

many notes a bit difficult to manage and to distinguish individually. certainly a smoky incensate, peppery, not too clerical but the right one. I like it clean at times. 9.5 / 10

One of the absolute best incense fragrances available on the market. Truly beautiful. Very pleasant with a nice Eastern feel.

One of the most, if not the most beautiful incense I ever smelled, with touches of resins and amber. very high quality

This is what I've been searching for... my Holy Grail Incense fragrance.

I love Prin’s works! His stuff is usually like the western scent types I usually don’t dig but done with slight twists via exotic ingredient subs for some of the usual notes...and therefore his works remind me of my trips to South Asia...where I loved the exotic smells of the plants and foods there, being an exoticist. This one gets so much hype from reviewers that I of course had to try it. But for me it just isn’t exotic at all...I guess I don’t relate to what most people want out of an incense fragrance. These scents (Interlude and such) don’t capture what I smell when I heat or burn loose resins nor incense sticks. They kinda smell like that usual overly smoky cigarette smell with an ambiguous western-designers’ incense accord vibe which has never reminded me of incense resin notes: not of extremely citrusy frankincense resins (frankincense is pretty much just a citrus scent in reality, with hojari smelling like lemon dish soap if I’m honest haha), raisiny/latexy myrrh (myrrh damn near has no smell but adds almost like a texture to the smells instead), oudy/chocolatey/animalic labdanum, nor maple/almond/vanilla benzoin resins. This one also a hint of some ambiguous mix of sweet spices (Christmas spices haha). It’s nice but I don’t think it’s that different from many of the other smoky cloud perfumes I’ve smelled. I already have a few (Rasasi Shuhrah and AKAF/MAM Amber Ash Sheikh) and I don’t need more. But that’s just me. I obviously don’t go for a lot of the stuff most of the users (or reviewers) go for here. But Prin is still one of my top favorite perfumers! In this case, he’s being a badass again by pleasing people other than me, which is still badass haha!

Ma Nishtana is beautiful. It is a simple perfume, described as an incense perfume, but each facet of the incense smell is brought through by the underlying notes. I have not smelled all of these notes as raw materials (for example, olibanum) but I feel that each one used is of high quality. This fragrance is very smooth, no harsh edges even though there is that smokiness. It starts off quite smoky and spicy, but as it dries, there are these lovely sweet, fruity touches that come through with some delicate fresh woodiness. The fruit and woods are not distinct as "notes", but attributes of the perfume itself. I really like it. I want my home to smell like this. It smells like the incense my mother always burns on Eid, our religious celebration - but more gentle. This perfumer really captures my childhood memories - I want to smell more from Prin Lomros.

To my nose, Ma Nishtana evokes the atmosphere of a Buddhist mountain temple far more than anything traditionally Middle Eastern. The incense feels cool, airy, and meditative more sandalwood and smoke than resinous spice. Throughout the composition runs a distinctly animalic facet that adds a subtle urinic, slightly dirty nuance. It never turns sour or overwhelming though, Instead it brings an unexpected warmth and grit. That faint dirtiness contrasts nicely with the calm incense and soft florals, giving the fragrance a nice edge. The deeper dry-down is my favorite stage of the fragrance as it gets more distinctively woody and smoky. My one criticism is I think I can imagine some people finding it a bit too reminiscent of metaphysical shops. For that reason personally I’m not sure this would be something full bottle worthy for me.

Gorgeous smoky ambery incense inspired by Jewish mystical literature. The perfume opens on a cloud of ash and spice with a plethora of spices including nutmeg, cloves, caraway, smoke accord, aldehydes and pepper. The heart has saffron, patchouli, rose, labdanum and leather. The perfume settles into an incense amber very fast with notes of myrrh, olibanum, amber, sandalwood and styrax. The unisex perfume is blended beautifully and has moderate to strong sillage and very good longevity. Another fine addition to the eclectic Prissana line of perfumes. Enjoy!

More incense-y on the blotting paper, more spicy on my skin. A great creation from Prin Lomros which makes you feel like breathing in fresh air outside a temple early in the morning. Not similar to Nefer at all. Nefer is sharper and more aromatic with ginger and Cypriol Oil. Anubis from Papillon is a thicker, sweeter, more leathery perfume compared to Ma Nishtana.

One of the best incense fragrances I've tried. Definate Avignon vibes underneath, but overlayed with spices and light florals to take this out of the church and into the surrounding areas. If you like heavy incense noted perfumes you should try this, not as much for originality but for quality.

Hey, it's a smoke that actually works for me! My skin tends to amp smoky notes to the point of being overwhelming, but somehow this is strongly smoky but the smoke doesn't completely take over. It hovers pretty neatly on the boundary between "clean" and "dirty." Pretty nice.

Thoughts of a sampling... * Smokey * Nice blend of Olibanum and Myrrh * And that’s all she wrote. No more. * The problem being “I want more “ * 100ml of this would be over $500.USD * This should be in the specialty niche or attar quality range. * But it is not. * Prin Lomros is a master with the various Ouds of the world. * He seems to have strayed from his wheelhouse on this one. * A much better blender of Olibanum and Myrrh gets half the price and better quality with much better performance. * For the curious, Filippo Sorcinelli, supplier of church scents to the Vatican, would be that perfumer. ** Final thought... Prin Lomros is a very good perfumer but he took the day off on this one.

Golden incense, myrrh and oriental spice, vastly overpriced, but undeniably gorgeous. Decidedly Asian incense vibe, more Temple than Cathedral. I agree with Phish Meister that Sorcinelli is the Maestro Vero of incense-based fragrances. Even after a small skin sample in an enclosed room, I'm drowning. I feel the need for some fresh air! But that dry down is undeniably opulent ! Mmmmm!

i was sucked in by all the poetic waxing about this one, but it's in the same genre of fizzy, damp incense as avignon, which just isn't my thing! my mom says it smells like the bitter pit of an apricot.

aldehydes, smoke, spice and resin, and all in doses that are a little too much to handle. there's a slight waxy/metallic element to the aldehydes here (it's the same one used in mandaraya), and it can really warp/distort the rest of the ingredients, and that is unfortunately what is going on here with this one. i'm getting a slight roasted coffee bean vibe, also, which doesn't detract from the scent, overall, but it isn't my favourite. additionally, the allspice note is getting overshadowed by the cloves. generally speaking, allspice has elements of cloves in the scent (as well as cinnamon and pepper, hence the name), but here, any 'spice' element is entirely smothered by cloves. I'm not a fan of cloves, i just find them too noxious, too overpowering and nowhere near 'sweet' enough. i haven't come across many scents with cloves that have blown me away, and unfortunately, this scent also suffers from this. so, i'm not too keen on this one. the aldehydes are too powerful (and it's the wrong aldehydes), the cloves are too strong and the coffee bean accord is too strong. if these elements are your thing, then give this scent a go... *** EDIT *** Wow, about 4 hours in, it changes quite dramatically! The coffee note vanishes (!!!), the cloves disappear and the aldehydes reduce to such an extent that the waxy/metallic elements are GONE. this is quite a pleasant scent and one that I plan to 'live in'; once i get through the other eleventy seven scents i have remaining untried. yep.

Surprisingly not as weird as I imagined. Straight up this is incense and refreshing herbal/essential oil mentholness flowed by warm woody spices something pleasantly floral with a tiny bit of animalics but not so bad you that you smell like you didn't make it it to the toilet in time. I would even say this is daily wear safe (maybe not office though). Overall pleasant and makes me think of sitting in a finish sauna surrounded by cool fresh mountain air with a cup of hot traditional spiced chai in your hand. Now that it has dried down more, it has lost that menthol-ic essential oil herbal-ness and smells really woody especially close to skin (literally the sauna wood heated up smell) but i do get hits of the cumin and clove in the air around me. Animalics died down too. I thinl this would be beautiful for someone who is looking for a realistic, non-synthetic fresh forest air scent in a romanticsed way. Pretty, not 'special' enough for me but I do like this!

Ma Nishtana feels like Prin took all the elements of burning incense and put them inside a scent. It's raw, deep, and unapologetic. It's very photorealistic and excellently done. There's a deeply animalic side to it, but it's masterfully contained with all the other floral and incensey elements. It feels like a living creature is inside it, pulsating around the smoke. It's evocative and communicates a sacred moment in a religious act. What stands out is the smoke effect that was sampled in here, it feels real and was sampled to perfection, the dry down is beautiful! Excellent perfumery and a creation that surely goes on top of those scents that are essential for a meditative moment in life.

This fragrance is the perfect recreation of lighting candles and saying a prayer. Astonished at how perfectly it portrays that experience. Bravo. Now, do you want to smell like this? That is another thing entirely. Certainly unique and beautiful in it's own right, but you need to really like resinous, slightly animalic, incense to truly enjoy this one. Worth smelling regardless of whether or not that sounds like something you might be interested in because this is truly a one-of-kind creation. Try it. Edit Half hour in now. The illusion is gone, the smokey waxy candle notes have disappeared leaving a spiced amber in its place. More wearable now, but less unique.

Drier and less sweet than Nefer but smells 90% the same. If you stripped back the ancient Egyptian opulence of nefer and instead replaced it with the austere and cold energy of liturgical incense you would arrive at MaNishtana. If you love Avignon and want something that carries the same energy but with better quality and performance this is the one.

This is not cold churchy incense. It starts out the same with the Frankincense and Myrhh and then becomes warm, inviting, smoky, spicy with a slight sweet amberyness. It's not my style but I have to admit it's good, very good.