Âme Sombre Grade 1

Ame Sombre is my favorite take on the Frankincense theme. Supposedly inspired by the legendary attar from Amouage, Tribute, which I have not tried, and I'm not sure I want to since I can't imagine anything better than this. And since Amouage was always sort of mediocre to me, I'll probably never hunt it down. When I can just get more of this. Ame Sombre strikes me as a highly spiritual blend in which Rose and Frankincense dominate. On paper, it looks redundant, something that has been done before. But it is unlike anything that I've tried. The balance and the way the ingredients work together, it is supreme. Clouds of frankincense wafting from the thurible, lush, sweet rose petals on top of clean, warm, and slightly mineral ambergris. I can't detect much oud in here, it is not a prominent note. The saffron is a major player as well, especially for the first half of the perfume. It is a light attar compared to others in the line. It wears delicately around yourself. Like fumigating your clothes with bakhoor. Every note is in tune. There's no moment when I sense a lack of harmony in this. The smoke is soft and ethereal, never intrusive, the rose is lush and sweet but never jammy, and the ambergris is crystalline and warm, only embracing the blend in a warm veil. Elegant, mysterious, and poised. A triumphant attar and one of my favorites from the house. IG:@memory.of.scents

This is back to what I consider more traditional attar business in the shape of a very acomplished fragrance with nice oud pungency right out of the gate, but it's immediately mellowed and clearly not supposed to dominate the composition. What does is the fizz of frankinsence, a syrupy amber and a beewax/honied, sweet rose and more than a twang of saffron. It's gorgeous let's face it, gets even nicer too as it dries down. I'm not taking nothing away from the composition but it's lots of opulent things, chiming in to give an experience that is satisfying but not highly original. Frankly who cares, all these materials are the finest in the world, coming together to make something special and Pasha's track record for making some of the most innovative and original oils out there, packing in tonnes of complexity, is well documented. This path is more trodden but he still does it with a huge dose of panache. I love it.

Imperial frankincense. I have never smelled Tribute attar and I am new to the attar esthetic of perfumery. I am a hard-core frankincense lover and this feels like an exaltation of the scent where all the other perfume notes are there to bring out the best of the incense that is present beginning to end. I don't get "church". There is too much woodiness and jaminess. It feels regal and primordial, accross cultures and time. My favorite so far from the Sultan Pasha sample collection. There is something reminiscent of Papillon Annubis, which I also love. They both have a strong frankincense note with leather and jasmine nuance, but they are distinct in vibe and other notes. Annubis is east Asian temples for me, while Ame Sombre is decidedly middle eastern. Both possess spiritual strength, but Ame Sombre also has a sensuality to it.

This was my first attar of Sultan Pasha, (with the amazing Ensar Rose), love at first sniff, I couldn't avoid buying it ! On me Ame Sombre oud infusion is a refined smoky scent with rose and tabac, I can see the patchouli at the beginning and delicious saffran and honey, hours later I'm wrapped with a resinous woody incens. It last hours and hours and I can even smell it the next day in a very subtle way. I like it in cold winter and whenever I need to feel calm.

Another one I didn’t like. This is a incense amber rose attar but the amber is very overpowering doesn’t feel well blended quite harsh. Also gives off a vibe from a antique shop, something like a old bit of furniture. If thats your thing maybe you will enjoy this but me personally i dont want to smell like old furniture. Performance was around 6 hours with no sillage

In the early hours it is like walking into a wet shoemaker shop. Three meters by two, without a window, with rubber soles, heels, buckles and black leathers all around. Then,the usual rose water a little spicier. Basically an explosive pink oud, from the 50s. Boredom.

Ame Sombre is an absolutely amazing fragrance centered around the use of a rich, heady frankincense, a voluptuous, ripe and juicy (but simultaneously hidden and mysterious) rose, a thick, chewy hyrax, a sweeter, less peppery cumin than I'm used to, benzoin-honeyed, raw pipe-tobacco, earthy, creamy saffron tinged patchouli, and a majestically ambered, leathery labdanum. The composition is heady, thick, chewy, musky as hell, smoky, and yet, juicy, rich, slightly sweet, almost edible at points and reveals the amazing care Sultan Pasha takes when tending to the fragrances of his that have a strong dichotomy at their core - for Ame Sombre is one of those fragrances that doesn't allow muddied or drowned qualities to overtake the nuanced play at work between the total form of the composition - It's absolutely a dense affair, don't get me wrong, but it's the difference between the solid and calcified remains of lava, and the molten flames themselves - neither completely consuming the other, and with a clear referential link guiding one from the lava to the solid form it later becomes. A lot of the notes here almost turn this dark, spicy, balsamic affair towards something edible at the edges - for it has a lot of qualities which sing to the financially exotic affairs of the rich and the famous. What's more, the ambergris is absolutely present here, and undulates betwixt adding a salty touch to the spiced, and smoky tones carrying a majority of the fragrance, and other times still adding to the warm, sweet and ambered qualities that seem to bellow underneath the waves of dense, dark smoke, musk, spices and woods that run overtop each other, as if waves of syrupy resin cascading atop each other, one after another. There is in fact a quiet jasmine note that begins to appear as the fragrance itself dries down, which joins with the patchouli to accentuate the leathery qualities which seem to be coming from the labdanum, as well as the tobacco which emerges through the thicker animallic qualities and more prominently atop a bed of resins. While the musk seems to persist here, it's more at the background of the composition than directly at the forefront. Absolutely one of the very best "dark scents" of all time, and one which, to me, is the true elixir that houses like Amouage boast as being contained within their line, but whose works fall short when stood next to Ame Sombre. Holy shit. 10/10 YT: Jess AndWesH

After application to my skin I got a intense blast of medicinal Oud and it was full on hospital band-aid with the disinfectant smell which caught me off guard. But before I could regroup and gather my senses I was assaulted by the most intense overwhelming Frankincense accord. lol.. With this knock out Incense blast was some rose and a hint of saffron At this point I was surrounded in a super potent Frankincense accord that I could have got a job as a Exorcist: " The power of my scent compels you devil, leave this innocent and back to hell with you." lol The quality was exceptional I could smell the lemony part of the Frankincense and it even overwhelmed the medicinal aspect, the poor rose was drowning in church incense. Then suddenly and dramatically after two hours the scent just died and became a skin scent, I got a few whispers of tobacco but the scent was basically gone. So all in all I enjoyed the artistic experience with this one and had fun experiencing the Incense but it was just too overwhelming and short lived for my tastes to wear as a personal fragrance.

I’m about 3 hours into my sample wear, and my first impression was, like the reviewer below me, “meh”. But, not a shocker, it has developed into something most definitely NOT “meh”. My skin wears this as the most gorgeous leather. I’m not getting rose or incense. Personal body chemistry? Nevertheless, as with all of the SPs I’ve tried thus far, it’s a masterpiece. No argument there. The man is gifted. The Oud in this is reaaalllly Oud - barnyard 100%. But that fecal quality goes away quickly, within 5 minutes, and does what Oud is supposed to do: bring out a deeper complexity, harmony, in the notes it supports. Ties them all together. I do have to disagree that this is just another “rose-oud”, albeit a superior specimen. For me, even though the ingredients suggest something fairly straightforward, the result has not been. Leans masculine. And of course, stellar projection. No surprise there.

For all of us that miss Tribute Attar by Amouage, here is the most flattering possible tribute to Tribute. Call it Tribute Squared. Fantastically dark yet sparkling: rose/ incense/ amber and SAFFRON comes on with a bang. Jasmine, Hyrax, Cumin all come rushing in to support, giving this a deep, funereal underside. Yes, there is something reminiscent of Anubis by Papillon in this Jasmine note but there is something 10 times as masculine and twenty times more forceful here. The delicate underworld rites of Liz Moore's masterpiece are left in embers, as the master, Sultan Pasha opens up the floor of the temple and shows the flames beneath. I found a bit of vintage Tribute attar recently and I have to admit, it's not as powerful as Ame Sombre. The "tribute to Tribute" has overtaken the original for me.

On my skin this opens up with lots of incense and amber. It is such a dark scent and has this almost industrial smokiness to it (which i love), which gives it such a distinctive smell. I get rose later on in the drydown and tobacco which gives the whole composition a really smooth, warming texture. The overall performance on my skin was excellent, you really do only need a very small application on your skin.

Ame sombre is not like Tribute, doesnt even hold a candle to it. Tribute is dark, smokyperfume thats justapoxed by a beautiful naturalistic pink rose. Ame sombre is rose and safraleine thats drowning in frankince resin note thats very soapy at the start and more resinous as it hit mid and base notes. How light and bright fragrance can be compared to a dark and royal Tribute is beyond me.

Beautiful oud-rose combo that does not smell the 1000s of other rose-ouds. This is one of the few I feel compelled to go back to and re-use, possibly exhaust the tiny amount remaining in the centrifuge container... A lot going on in this scent...