Encens Chypre
Sultan Pasha (2014)

Encens Chypre is a beautiful Chypre-Oriental attar, inspired by the likes of Mitsouko, with an Oriental twist in Sultan's style, with Frankincense, elemi, benzoin, and a dash of civet in the base. It's easy to wear, quite linear though, and a beautiful composition that doesn't unfortunately bring anything new to the game. I'd say, the least interesting of his Chypre attars, and my least favorite, but the easiest one to start exploring. Because it's so linear and repetitive, I can't speak too highly of it, and I would rather go for Diaghilev or Mitsouko. Beautiful, just a bit boring.

it just takes your focus away from anything else but the breathtaking beauty and the shifting fragrance lines. Extraordinary.

I'll let others illuminate the simple magic of this.
Chypre yes.
It's the warm animalic and the draw of Clary Sage that have me swooning. Iris blending and leading Incense delivers a dreamy elegance.
Presque Parfait. Porr mwah.

A green mossy forest with a dirty earthy smell but also uplifted by a slight airy sweetness is what I get from this.

It's very nice and there are a lot of notes dancing around the core oakmoss backbone of the scent. Incense adds the air of mystery whilst the lighter notes give the scent a uplifting feeling whilst the civet grounds the scent at the same time.

A very lovely chypre fragrance with quality ingredients that just has you sniffing yourself again and again.

juicy lime with flavors of oud...breathtakingly beautiful and aromatic...a tapestry of flowers appears and disappears , over and over...some rose and, dare I say , a " gentle " oakmoss...it's like a chypre that wants to be an Oriental and an Oriental that wants to be a chypre...some animalic flavored presence of resins...just a slight dab of sweetness and smoke...the feel of incense...there's so much going on I could never see getting bored of this fragrance...a little herbiness throughout...nice oud in here , but very gentle , never overwhelms the other ingredients...another great work of art from the Sultan...

Encens Chypre is one of my very favorite from Sultan Pasha - I dare say as far as I can step aside from my personal aesthetic taste, I would say if you could only pick five masterworks per house (as if most houses would even come close, usually reigning in one or two at most) Encens Chypre would be right up there.

There's this amazing affect that takes place upon the first wave this fragrance releases - there's lime, orris, oaskmoss, elemi, bergamot, peach, artemisia, rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang - to describe it, I would say at the center there is a fusion of peach and lime creating this beautiful 'citrus' top, which feels unlike any other citrus quality you have thus encountered - directly underneath the lime is the crisp and cool elemi resin, the soft dusty, medicinal artemesia, the slightly herbal and crusty oakmoss, while under the peach one can almost taste the deliciously jammy rose, the cool (almost sparkling) orris root, the custard-y ylang-ylang, the heady and almost syrupy jasmine, and the juicy bergamot curbing the almost over-ripe edges of the peach.

There's a woodiness that gently lingers underneath the totality of this majestic first wave - a spiciness rises from this stage as well that seems to come from the carnation, but there is also a depth to it that's a little smoky which I believe to be the incense barely awakening near the very depth of the base. This woody quality occasionally feels salty, but primarily has a honeyed or amber quality which tinges it with a sweetness that perfectly works to make one recognize the absolutely dizzying number of notes present in the first wave of this work. As the work progresses, it seems as if the semi-sweet muskyness that seemed barely present at first begins to grow alongside the chewy as all hell tobacco, smoky and leathery oud, as well as this comforting cashmere/dark brown feeling ambered effect that seems to be a mixture of the tolu balsam and the benzoin - it's spiced, but almost like a thick, sweet, dark spiced spirit, it feels very warm, heady, and beautiful.

These qualities seem to grow very softly and sneakily as the composition doesn't have any real abrupt moments, but seems to utilize the complex and huge number of notes to slowly drop the wearer from one set of images, ideas, and feelings to another, while never seeming like a piece is out of place, always staying warm, comforting, delicious and exotic. There is a wonderful transition between what seem to me to be the primary floral notes of the composition, where the rose spills into the ylang-ylang, which spills into the jasmine - they are all present throughout a majority of the composition to me, but, as if a theme throughout a complex, engaging, majestic, and long symphony, this seems to be a place that the wearer can steady their gaze as the rest of the work carries out around them. The creaminess of this composition is just to die for, as the sweets, the fruits, the spices, the florals, and the smoky, leathery, oudy aspects of this fragrance dance around this wonderful chypre base that could turn even the most avid anti-chypre fragrance lover to a devout fan of the genre, despite having encountered one of the very highest peaks available to the genre.

This is one of those fragrances that really reveals how thoughtful and savant-like Sultan Pasha is, for this fragrance somehow blends elements of Eastern perfumery with classical French perfumery to create something that wonderfully signs to the archaic, while being firmly in the present - one which takes the idea of one of the most beloved fragrances of all time (Mitsouko) and denies copying it (occasionally calling for others to remember her, without directly referencing her) and stands firm in it's own land. This fragrance is one of the most addicting, regal, and majestic fragrances I have ever put my nose to, and despite the fact that you won't want to run out, you will find yourself applying it day after day, simply because of how much you are dying to experience it again and again.

Another hard earned 10/10 for Sultan Pasha

YT: Jess AndWesH