Forty Thieves
Fort and Manlé (2018)

Alright, maybe the name of this one is a nod to a souk of the imagination, but I was a bit unprepared for what Forty Thieves actually delivers – a mainly resinous mix that shades off into baritone woods plumped up with an ambrette type skin-musk. It seems somewhat single-minded and the sweeter aspect of it (which is obligatory as everything here seems to be wildly signalling ‘Amber alert!’) is quite restrained to begin with – the honey of the declared notes and the florals registering only meekly. All of which may be a refreshing change in terms of genre expectations, but I found that its straight-to-the-point approach where the resins are firmly in charge left me longing for a bit of a twist to enliven its story.
Well, that twist came when the sweeter end of things billowed up in a kind of apple-rose-honey cushion (an accord not entirely unfamiliar to followers of the house) and provided some welcome rounding out. Accomplished but failed to give my heart a flutter.

I feel long overdue to sample the latest Fort & Manle release, Forty Thieves, which I've had on my radar for months, given how much I like two of the Melbourne house's other resinous perfumes, Amber Absolutely and Suleyman Le Magnifique, and so I'm inclined to compare Forty Thieves to these two previous releases, both of which I love.

Forty Thieves is resin-dominant, somewhat animalic but also slightly sweet, a palpably-strong blend of its signature resins–incense, labdanum, amber, and balsam–and they're blended well enough that I cannot really detect any in particular that strongly but it leans a little more to labdanum on my skin. Honey makes it even creamier, though, further making the blend feel complete.

The other key players are the fresh bergamot, petitgrain, pink pepper that give a bright and pungent opening with a dry down that incorporates rose, albeit only slightly, along with orange blossom, vanilla, woods, and even the slightest touch of oud, perhaps, though I might simply be inserting that. It's really not an oud-heavy fragrance on my skin and most of the darkness in it I attribute to the nuances in the various resins in the mix.

Amber Absolutely is a boozy, fruity amber, while Suleyman Le Magnifique is a cinnamon amber, to summarize them succinctly, but Forty Thieves is a more animalic-leaning blended amber with the fresh opening and rose dry rendering it somewhat different from the other two.

It's never particularly easy testing off of a dabber from Luckyscent, the only US boutique that sells the Fort & Manle, but with richer fragrance like this, it's manageable. It performs on par with the other resinous fragrances, with good longevity and projection, but the main selling point of this fragrance is the quality of the composition in terms of nuance, complexity, and completeness. Forty Thieves retails for $190 for 50ml and like all previous releases, the bottle is ornate and mostly opaque, really among my favorite bottle types as far as art.

Overall, I love this one and it's right in my wheelhouse, category-wise, so it's on the proverbial list for a bottle.

8 out of 10

Opens with a harsh scent reminiscent of opening a jar of pickled beets or piccalilli or something my Polish grandmother would have had lining her cellar back wall that she prepped that summer for the winter. Smell of ferment.

The harsh pickling notes really hang on tight and when they finally relent, it does settle to a very nice nectar notes and the incense smoke of the German 'smokers' with their multicolored multi scented seasonal cones.

Although Forty Thieves rounds out and the dry down is definitely marvelous, I shouldn't have to smell like ferment for an hour to get there.

I received a sample of Forty Thieves and did not like it at the beginning. Don't let the first spray disappoint you. At first application it can be a bit harsh. Then comes the good part..the dry down.
Absolutely beautiful incense with honey rounded off by rose, papyrus and bergamot. Definitely a cold weather fragrance. It lasts a long time on me.