A few weeks ago, I wrote about a custom scent that I’d ordered from Italian perfumer Abdes Salaam, Aalacho No. 2. Salaam shared samples of the fragrance with members of the Basenotes community, and here’s what a reviewer wrote about it:
“Very resinous, smoky, dark, incense and coniferous wood with a deep underlying sweetness. The green is much more buried under spikier folliage … The leaves and vegetation are there but smell more bitter brown than green, a little charred like the remenants of a forest fire a few years past. This is more macho, almost fierce, but the honeyed wood underneath it all speaks of the softer side of the bears in the trees. It eases a little as it develops with well blended tobacco linking the animalic with the leafy and herbal aspects.”
The exact list of materials used to create Aalacho No. 2: frankincense, opoponax, tobacco, costus, oakmoss, patchouli, cardamom, Mysore sandalwood, cedar, vetiver, angelica, labdanum, styrax, tonka, castoreum and honey bee.
I already went through my first bottle of the stuff (it’s easy to appreciate a scent that’s been crafted to my own specifications), so I ordered another. It arrived yesterday, and to my surprised delight, the bottles that Salaam uses have seen a definite upgrade. The first bottle I received last year was a kind of thick, translucent plastic with deco stylings. Okay, but not great. The one I pulled out from its box yesterday is a marked improvement — clear cut glass with a brass collar and shaped cap. The labeling looks like it’s gone through a rethinking and redesign, as well.
Photos below:
Glass bottles catch the light so beautifully.
***Note: in case you’re wondering why I chose the name “aalacho” — it’s a mystical name for the 11th hour of the night. I figured that since I always seem to be riding the ragged edge of the very last minute, “the 11th hour” was an appropriate term to embrace.
Abdes Salaam is a professional perfumer with a mostly corporate clientele, but his personal line of perfumes, Scents of the Soul, is a labor of love. Scents of the Soul are crafted from all-natural materials and are only available from the website www.profumo.it. You can find the page for ordering your own custom perfume here: Your Perfume of the Soul.
If you have an itch to see how a custom perfume might turn out for you, Salaam’s process is easy, his skills are superlative and he’s a pleasure to work with. The all-natural approach might not be what every person is looking for, but if you’re a fan of all-natural perfumery, his work is certainly worth checking out.
Sniffapalooza Magazine has an interview with perfumer Abdes Salaam at the following link, Interview with Perfumer Abdes Salam Attar of La Via del Profumo: “Not all my perfume contain animal scents. Perfumes being made for the people, they should have the opportunity to choose, but a fragrance that contains both botanical and animal elements has a different dimension for our olfactory system. This is what I call “three-dimensional perfumery” . . . animal and botanical dimensions blend into olfactory three dimensionality.”
