Tribute Attar
Amouage (2009)

It starts off with notes of roses, grapes, and saffron at the top. The middle gives way to Omani Frankincense which should make them Omani people proud of such a creation to come out of their country. The base is a vetiver and leathery smoky delicious tone. This is one the few attars that I’m in love with. Worth the buy.

(Variations with formulations and batches are highly pronounced. This is a bottle with the black top in the beige box.)

"One leather to rule them all." That's how this perfume feels. If leather could be a force of nature, in Tribute it would be a smoldering, smoking volcano. Not at the point of erupting, but containing its earth melting energy underneath burbling and smoking super-heated lava. It's tempting to call to mind perfumes like Dior's Leather Oud, and indeed there are a lot of similarities, but whereas Leather Oud was a super-heated super-dry leather, like the hottest of desert winds blowing into your face, Tribute is far wetter and far thicker, much like lava that it's calling to mind. Opening notes of gentle roses and jasmines touched by saffron give way to heart and base notes of exquisite, smokey frankincense, leather, and patchouli. Through all of the thick, wet heat and the dense smoke, the beauty of Tribute is that it never manages to be suffocating or cloying. No matter how close I get my nose to my arms and hands, I always feel like I'm hovering far above the surface of this caldera's super-heated, smoking, molten lava. This perfume relishes in its power, authority, and stateliness, but it never devolves into anything crass or loud (this isn't for the half-wits that want a perfume that is described as "beast mode," even though this perfume is more of a beast than anything of similar accords you can find on retail shelves).

I'm finding it very hard to describe why I love this perfume, and its personality. It gives me this feeling that I could never wear it to work, I could never wear it to a restaurant, I could never wear it casually - or even formally - to anything anywhere. Today, I'm wearing it in scrub lounging-around-the-house clothes, enjoying the sunny spring weather while I casually munch on light Mediterranean fare and leisurely accomplish some chores... and, for some reason, that feels like the perfect way to experience Tribute. The perfume gives you this feeling it very much needs privacy and quiet; it's not for sharing, it's not for others to experience, like your most private and personal moments. It feels special, like a once in a lifetime experience meant to have a permanent place in your mind and heart. Truly, truly wonderful.

Tribute's mentholated beginning is unexpected. There's an herbaceous minerality that is likely tobacco, followed by a slightly alcoholic astringency that, coupled with the smoke, takes on a camphorous and elixir-like quality. The attar's opening notes are its most addictively medicinal and perhaps the most off-putting for some. This is a concentrated oil, after all, and so the way in which the attar's concentration slowly opens up and diffuses into its leather, takes time, patience, and intrigue.

I place one drop on each wrist, as well as one on each lapel of my wool jacket. If others reject this scent's potency as inimical to office wear, I take the other perspective. Traveling to work, whether in your car, on your bike, or on a train, becomes a ritual that cherishes our waking moments. What I like about attars in general is that instead of enveloping you in a soft bubble–or a monstrous, “beast-mode” cloud–they resonate with the subtle power and dignity of having been anointed. One feels that perhaps the only way to apply this attar is to do so while taking a knee. What happens afterward (buttoning your jacket, heading out the door) takes on mystic proportions that the thinness of perfume spray can never replicate.

Where is the rose? Where is the frankincense? Batch variations lead me to think that perhaps I don't have the best of what Tribute could or has offered. Still, I don't wear Tribute to smell anything in particular. I wear it to induce a mood that evolves while recurring its various leitmotifs (solitude, nature, the moon in the early afternoon) for around 6 hours. In my mind, I'm not entirely sure I'd double its duration if given the chance. Not everything has to last forever. Tributes are small gifts of great value that indicate the worth of the receiver while signaling the wealth of the giver. Amouage's discontinued creation does this and is dignified enough to do nothing else.

The Red Box version is definitely a bit softer and a tiny bit rosier (especially in the dry down), while the Black Box version is definitely smokier and somewhat darker. I think it was sciencegirl who said the Red Box was a cigar to the Black Box' cigarette. I think this is a perfect analogy. They are both really amazing if you are into smokey, campfire scents. They also feel a bit monolithic to me, with not enough changes to keep me interested indefinitely, so neither is something I would invest in, ALTHOUGH, the longer I wear them and the softer they become, the more I find myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe..."

Now that a few hours have gone by, I (pure blasphemy, I know) actually enjoy the Black Box version a bit more than the Red Box. BB is a bit less sweet, and seems to emphasize the frankincense more. (By the end of the day, I'll probably have reversed my position, so take my impressions here with a large grain of sea salt!)

This has so many things I love in a fragrance hitting my nose right from the start...I get the dirty and smoky orange rind that some people mention , but it lurks behind other facets...for me to get some enjoyment from that note i have to take a slow deep inhale and pause to catch on to it...dark/brooding/gothic/smoky are some of the descriptors that come to mind...an overall animalic feel...no civet or castoreum or anything along those lines...more of just an overall sense of wild feral animals roaming a dark wood with an ocassional wild rose blooming here and there...deep/rich/dark tobacco leaves...leather is there too...there's seems to be a lot of people out there that put this fragrance up on a pedestal, call it an oriental masterpiece and claim they found their holy grail...well, I have to say , I understand where they are coming from cause I'm on board with that...one of the most awesome fragrances I've ever smelled...get some great wood tones as it dries down...and, it goes without saying, this has a tremendous sprinkling of incense throughout...another one for my wish list... ( I do have a small decant what I believe was the most current version )...not a harsh smoke in this to my nose...more of a sweet smoke...IMHO , I think that Myths Man and Interlude Man are a sort of offshoot of this blueprint....mysterious deep dark rich smoky orientals...but that's just me...oh, and overall...this was definitely a incense/tobacco/leather scent to my nose...the rose did not really stand out for me...it's there, but not a key player to me..

Another admirer. Smoke, leather, and tobac kind of like what you get in a good strong lapsang souchong tea at remarkable density. It's not meaty though. Flowers or incense? Perhaps, but in this mix they don't pop for me.

An absolute favorite.

edit#1 - Among the very best tobacco scent I've ever owned.