Mukhallat means blend in Arabic. In its proper sense, it refers to a fragrance made by combining different oils together, materials that have already been distilled, tinctured, or otherwise prepared elsewhere, then mixed into a single composition. Attar, in its original and stricter sense, means something different, a fragrance...
Fragrant Notes
Fragrant Notes is where I write — about the materials and the process, the history and tradition of scent, the stories behind individual attars, and anything else that doesn’t fit on a product page. Natural perfumery, rare ingredients, and the craft behind what I make.
How to Wear Attar — A Beginner’s Guide
Attar is applied differently to a spray perfume. Here’s how I’d recommend wearing it. Where to Apply It I’d always point people toward pulse points first, particularly the wrists and the neck. These are spots where blood vessels sit close to the surface of the skin, which gives you...
What Does Castoreum Smell Like?
Leathery is the word people reach for first, and it’s the right one, but castoreum is more layered than that alone. There’s a distinct birch tar quality running through it, a smoky, almost medicinal edge sitting alongside the leather, and underneath both of those a warmth that’s genuinely hard...
What Does Civet Smell Like?
Raw, civet is intense — urinous, and close to what you might call a vomit-like note, and it’s not really possible to soften that description. At full strength it’s genuinely offensive, the kind of smell that makes you understand immediately why most people who’ve never worked with it assume...
What Is Hyraceum?
Hyraceum is fossilised hyrax excrement. Hyraxes are small mammals native to Africa, and because they return to the same spot for generations, the build-up compacts over thousands of years into something closer to stone than droppings. What Does Hyraceum Smell Like? Raw, hyraceum carries a faecal note and a...
What Does Ambergris Smell Like? Real Ambergris in Perfumery
Most people have never smelled real ambergris. Most perfumers haven’t either. What they’ve smelled is ambroxan — a synthetic compound designed to replicate the key aromatic molecule in ambergris, without being anything close to the real thing. And most fragrances marketed as amber have nothing to do with ambergris...
Baqāʾ — A Reflection
There is a particular feeling that comes when something you have worked on for a long time finally reaches its conclusion. When I filled the Baqāʾ bottles, I felt it fully — a quiet sense of completion after months of work that had begun long before the blending itself....
