Durra

Many aquatic perfumes conjure up a particular geographical area: Tom Ford’s Oud Minérale plunges one into the cold seas of the northern hemisphere; Creed’s Virgin Island Water suggests the sparkling blue waters and white sands of a Caribbean island; Bvlgari’s Aqva and its flankers more generically tangle one up with seaweed and brine; and so on. Spirit of Dubai has an aquatic in its earlier niche range, Bahar, which with strong sea notes and an attractive undertone of citrus and spice pleasantly takes one to the pristine sands of the Persian Gulf. Spirit of Dubai’s more recent aquatic, Durra, in its ultra-niche range, is a far stranger beast. It’s by far the strangest aquatic I’ve encountered, even compared with Mendittorosa’s Sogno Reale, which brings together the unlikely combination of sea notes and the fossilised excreta of the hyrax. I can only describe Durra as an earthy green aquatic with an animalic undertone. Far from the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, Durra makes me think of the coast of West and Central Africa or of Central America: if you’ve seen it, think of Peter Weir’s film The Mosquito Coast, starring Harrison Ford, shot on the Caribbean coast of Belize. Mangrove swamps stretch out into the sea, blurring the line between land and water. Animals lurk in the undergrowth; crustaceans and other creatures move at the edge of the water in the thick, pungent, briny mud. The air is hot and extremely humid. One sweats and never quite feels clean. Durra opens with a blast of a very similar aquatic note to Bahar, but equally pungent is a dense, almost skanky, earthy green miasma. After an hour, in which the earthy green note to me is almost too pungent (and I relish barnyard ouds), the skanky nature dies back slightly and for the next few hours each sniff meets a parade of subtly changing and overlapping notes: woods, conifer, spices, fruit, animalic notes, leaves, greenery, and so on. By two hours in, the scent is much more wearable and smells cleaner, and it continues in this vein for many hours, lingering on clothes for days. Its sillage is very strong in the first few hours. As with everything this house does, the packaging and quality of the product are second to none. In conclusion, I love this perfume, even if its more pungent qualities would restrict how often and where I would wear it. The sticking point for me is the price. At £895 for 90 ml, I find it difficult to justify buying a full bottle, though I may do. However, a beautifully presented 5 ml atomizer is also available for £52 from Spirit of Dubai’s website, which is well worth trying if the scent appeals. Update 16/01/21: The price on the Spirit of Dubai website for the 90 ml bottle has dropped without announcement to £685.00 (and the prices of the rest of the ultra niche range have also dropped proportionally). Whether this is accompanied by reformulation or other changes is unclear.

Godness me that's strong, previous reviewers described it perfectly, nothing more to add. There are room fillers and there are building fillers like Durra and other TSoD second generation offerings. This will linger in the air for hour's wherever you go and when you test it I suggest to spray far away from the neck area at first. In the air it smell's much better than sniffing it up close but that's with all TSoD offerings since they include ton of heavy notes. You need to have tremendous self-confidence to wear this scent, it's animalic, oceanic(salty), earthy and oudy so be prepared when you wear this that people around you may not appreciate it. It might be too much for normal people, but for sure you will make a statement, huge one. Longevity on skin is 24h+(months on clothes) with at least 8-12h constant projection so you need to really love this smell and feel good good while wearing it because it might exhaust you I really love this one, everytime I wear it I'm amazed of how unique and good it is but because it's a fragrance that you won't use casually Im not sure right now if I wanna buy it. People around me are 50/50, they either absolutetly hate and can't stand it or are amazed and speachless of how good it is. This is last thing you wanna buy blindly unless you wanna come here with super negative review and cry that you spend that amount and hate what you got. Rarely you can say something so expensive it's really worth the price but this one it's 100%, you dont even need the full bottle, 5-10ml will do the job for a long time I suppose

My grandfather was a forest ranger and lived at the station in the woods. Despite the price, I bought this because it smelled like my grandmother's house. I can't explain it. It was a perfect match. I was instantly transported to walking in the front door of her home, which opens into the kitchen with the dining room and living room beyond it. The smells I smell in this: ❤ the hay and musk from the horses ❤ the trees and sunflowers outside ❤ wildflowers being cut under cold, running, iron-rich water to go in a vase ❤ strawberry greens being boiled for tea ❤ blueberry muffin mix, about to go into the oven ❤ fresh zucchini bread coming out of the oven ❤ oyster casserole cooling on the table ❤ my grandmother's slightly peony-rose-LOTV perfume, about to die down ❤ the wood planking and large-grey-river-rock walls of the living room ❤ a hint of the day-old-soot in the fireplace in the living room ❤ the faint dusty-musty smell that belongs to everything in the forest. It was the ONLY reason I was willing to splurge on this, and I decanted a travel vial for her to use in her nursing home for her birthday. I wear it on days I want to remind myself to make my Grammy proud. For the average buyer, I think this is way overpriced. For me, it is priceless.

I tried Durra at Scentido, Mumbai some time back and its a powerful fragrance. Truly regal and powerful. Scentido people told me that a single, light spritz would suffice. The long list of quality ingredients that went into Durra reads like who is who in the fragrance world. There's an animalic as well as earthy vibe that comes from masterful blending of vetiver with other notes like oud and saffron. Salty, watery and mild animalic notes remain in the forefront. The tester bottle of Durra at Scentido was one of the earliest batches. I hope new bottles of Durra aren't reformulated due to new IFRA rules. This is totally an aquatic fragrance and Durra brings forth the oceanic vibe like no other scent does. Less is more here and overspraying becomes too animalic. This is what all aquatic scents hope to be someday. A spritz of Durra takes you to the sea, salty waves, boats, seashells, pearls, starfish .. This is a fragrance of immense depth. Depth? This is the Mariana trench. Bottled. But try it before you buy becoz we all perceive fragrances differently.

Durra is my first encounter with anything from Spirit of Dubai, and I must say I’m thoroughly impressed. This scent is the epitome of a summertime oud fragrance, combining both the woody and resinous aspects of Middle Eastern perfumery, with the refreshing aquatic feel of the summer. There’s obviously way too many notes in here to be able to pick them all out, but some dominate more than other. More than anything, I get an explosion of a thick and intensely earthy oud alongside smoky birch, leather, civet, castoreum and tolu balsam which provides this rich and animalic soul to the scent. To contrast, there’s a powerful mix of aquatic and ozonic aldehydes with some hints of green pine, aromatic sage and masculine lavender. Durra is incredible, a must-try if you’re seeking a complex and attention grabbing summer scent that strays away from what we’re used to in the West. The contrast of the refreshing salty spray of the sea, with the earthy animalics and oud shouldn’t work at all, and yet it does - fantastically.