Mevlana - In The Medieval City

This is one of few fragrances that gave me an emotional response when I smelled it. I'm from BC like the perfumer, and though this is based on a cafe in Greece, it gives me nostalgia for a cozy and darkly lit space on a cold night. I mainly get warm, very natural smelling wood (near a pine forest scent, the mastic I assume) with slight sweetness. This is stunning for autumn and winter. I wouldn't be afraid to wear it formally or on a casual day. I am female but it works wonderfully for any gender. I first tried this last year in the Untamed discovery set, and the year-old formula has not gone off at all (something I watch for with natural ingredients). Rather, it's gotten slightly deeper/stronger.

I can smell the cardamom and incense in this one. It's a bold perfume, but comforting at the same time. My coworker compared it to a warm spicy tea and wants to check out this company, so not only does it smell good, but gets compliments too!

I just received my First sample kit! UNTAMED’s descriptions won me over, so here I am, excited to savour these 7 fragrances. Melvana ITMC convinced me to spray her first, cold out of the package immediately after delivery. She’s sweet & spicy upon opening. Familiar. A bit overwhelming, as I am used to simpler essential oil blends from a local perfumérie, & haven’t used sprays in many years. I like her. Wish I had done a quarter spray, or from a greater distance, as the strength is more intense & constant than I prefer. That said, I do like her so far. She gives a more feminine variation of Drakkar Noir to me... A dense forest of Drakkar Noir with an overlay of wafting roses, & dried fruit alternating with a translucent turquoise mist. Interesting. This is an hour after spraying. If she changes as the day goes on, I’ll update accordingly. The similarity to Drakkar Noir is so unexpected, to me, but I love it. I had a girlfriend who wore DN, 20 years ago, & this is bringing me back. Back several hours later. I had to scrub, as the intensity was giving me a headache & nausea. I don’t blame the perfume, though - I’m sensitive to certain chemical fragrances, & had ordered these thinking the company didn’t use synthetics for some reason. After two showers, I’m still detecting her, so this one has staying power! I’m going to try the others over the next few weeks, & hopefully one will work out for me. If not, I will have a sample set up for sale if anyone wants dibs...

For those in the US familiar with the now out-of-business Christmas Tree Shops, this smells like a sweeter, less synthetic version of how that store always smelled. I’m guessing that might be the “Greek mastic” note, which, as mentioned by Becktothebone, takes over the majority of the blend. It’s now about 5 and a half hours after application, and it’s growing faint on both skin and clothes, but the rich, sweet spice is now a subdued version of its former self, with some vanilla notes coming through. Because of the associations I have with the scent, I can’t imagine wearing it outside of the Christmas season, but it’s a rich and unique fragrance for the holidays. I think it would smell particularly good on a guy, but it could work for anyone.

This is not a scent profile I’m familiar with, and I love it for that. It’s hard to really describe, for that reason. My grandmother was a traveller throughout the 1900s and had a huge collection of items from all around the world.. this scent kind of reminds me of that room of antiques. Sweet in a bitter kind of way, peppery in a dusty kind of way, warm in a burnt kind of way. If you’re looking for an original scent, a step away from the generic, this is your fragrance. But not super wearable for me personally... a little too “dusty/burnt” smelling

i can smell several of the notes which independent of each other are profiles i usually derive great pleasure from, but together they don’t quite mesh on my skin and end up creating a scent quite reminiscent of sweet pickles.

An apt name that conjures up the image of a medieval city, with dirt roads and stone castles, ramshackle stores kept by blacksmiths and bakers, horses and hay in the barnyard, and wafting sweet smoke from lit tobacco pipes. Mevlana is an ultra-dense, ultra-strong fragrance on me. The scent prickles my nose - it's not really a smell I can get used to and enjoy wearing (and that really makes me question why I purchased the largest bottle after sampling -- I guess I didn't know my tastes well enough back then). The scent is very opulent, though in my opinion overwhelmed by the note of mastic, which is not something I think I'll ever get used to. The rose in here is also strong and slightly sour on me. It combines with the mastic to create this sort of astringent bubble I'm not in love with. I'm just not cut out to carry such a heavy scent on myself and I do believe this scent would do better on someone with warmer and sweatier skin than me, which is basically everyone else on this planet - I'm perpetually dry and cold. Sniffing up as close as I dare, I get the smokey quality of tobacco, which peeks its head out more as time passes. On my skin the blend becomes increasingly more bitter and smokey with the tobacco and coffee over time and despite smelling sweet, the coffee/tobacco and sweetness exist in separate layers - oddly dissonant, never harmonious on my skin. Forgive me for overanalyzing, but I feel that something is missing to connect the sweet-astringent-mastic-rose and bitter-smokey-coffee-tobacco together. The only way for me to tolerate this one is by spraying on my lower back below clothing, which creates something pleasant but still, not really "me". This scent is for a rich maximalist - I always imagine some kind of Turkish queen wearing a thick velvet cape and tons of gold jewelry and heavy kohl eyeliner and amazing thick brows and eyelashes eating dates drenched in honey, sitting on a throne with a big golden scepter. This is quite the opposite of me (lol). Sunyata is a brilliant perfumer but I'm afraid all her fragrances are just too heavy and complex for me and tend not to do well on my skin. I'd highly recommend sampling from this house if you love rich, unique and interesting creations. However be careful around this scent if you're like me and prefer "airier" and lighter things.

Loukoum, cardamom coffee and shisha... This is what I imagine what a relaxing Sunday afternoon in Greece feels like. Mevlana opens with tons of mastic. It has a very particular smell and taste, I'd describe it as frankincense meets pine balsam, but with a refreshing searing bitterness. It's rare seeing mastic in perfumes, so I'm happy that it's represented well here. After the wonderful green opening, the loukoum/turkish delight accord that follows is lovely. It smells of fluffy, powdery vanilla with hints of dry rose. Milky but never steer towards the waxy-sour scent of evaporated/condensed milk. It’s sensibly sweet, but the bitter-woody cardamom coffee balances it out even further. The tobacco is overarching the whole composition, and it's far more gentle than I expected. It’s dry and leafy, with an often overlooked raisin/fig facet that evokes unlit cigarettes. Tobacco perfumes often smells like a cloying coumarin-cherry mess on me, this one doesn’t. Mevlana is quite shapeshifting and abstract so it's hard to describe it well. I wear it when I crave a tobacco fragrance.

Probably the most obscure unique frag I’ve ever encountered...I don’t know how to to describe this I’m assuming the “Greek Mastic” note is what it is that is taking the whole blend over for me. It reminds me of a cooking spice I don’t know which one but it’s a hearty rich savory spice. I keep thinking of lentil stew. It’s so unique. I will keep testing this. I wish there was more of the vanilla sugar presence. The one note is dominating...

After owning it for year, I'm condensing my review as this. Weekend opulence. After a big meal, you took a shot of mastika for digestion, followed with coffee and loukoum, and finishing the rest of the day by lounging and smoking narguille.