Reviews of Tribute Attar by Amouage

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.

Wearing Tribute Attar (from the black box, at least) makes me smell like a cigarette smoker, but an especially good-smelling one. I like it.

It's not perfect, but it's quite interesting. It is something I would be interested in wearing from time to time. I would feel confident of making a positive impression wearing this. It's strong and memorable. It's an exciting sampling experience. It is crazy smoky, in a good way, borderline overboard, but just the right side of tasteful. An enthusiastic thumbs up for this nuclear-strength, smoky, tobacco bomb.

Stardate 20171115:

I was looking forward to this. I think my expectations were way too high as this did not meet them.
Smoke and cedar without the dryness. And after a while rose shows up.
A very well constructed attar but I do not feel the urge to wear it. No chemistry with me.

BLACK BOX
Whoa!!
Prepare to have your head snap back and eyes to roll.
Totally Masculine,Dark, Smokey Incensed, chewable Leather animalic backbone. Reminiscent to Leather Oud.
The Rose emerges slowly from the pouch laced with Saffron tea and Jasmine refined Petroleum. Patchouli and Ganja swirl around to come off as a slightly sweetened Aromatic Tobacco. Vetiver adds a Peppery textured background.
If this sounds simple, the perfume is not.
It is rich with the nuances of first class ingredient, exploding in slow motion with a feel of pure Silk.

RED BOX
Opens with a Camphourous Patchouli. Otherwise almost identical, Masculine Smokey Silk.

So thanks to a fellow awesome basenoter here, I finally got my hands on this ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE! As good as advertised, period. There is a totally authentic, and high quality middle eastern vibe from the very beginning. Some spicy, dark frankincense and just a hint of soapy clean to it, possibly from the jasmine combined with something. And one of the best parts is there is no dominating rose smell at all, but it can be picked up if you're looking for it! There is some patchouli that lingers around, but it is done in the best way possible. Patchouli is almost always overdone and too strong, but not here, it's blended in beautifully! It is just very well balanced and complex. As others have mentioned, Tribute is extremely strong and also lasts forever. You only need to use a little bit at a time, which works since the price tag is so hefty. Even with the high price, I find it very worth the money, and I'm by no means wealthy. Top 3 of any fragrance I've ever gotten my nose on!

The holy grail of incense and rose!
Simple, quality, dark, smoky, musky, peppery, elegant ...these are thing that comes to my mind when I'm smelling this.
The opening of this fragrance is a semi sweet, semi fresh musky rose along with noticeable amount of incense right beside it. rose is kind of fresh here but not very fresh and watery that remind you of rose petals or rose water. it's darker than that. I can clearly smell musk as well that gives rose a semi sweet, musky and mellow dirty animalic feel and finally incense has a bitter and ash-tray kind of aura that makes the opening darker.

As time passes by, after about 2-3 minutes rose goes in the background while scent gets smokier because of stronger incense and kind of peppery because of spices. to be honest I'm not getting tobacco in this fragrance. only incense with touch of leather but definitely no tobacco!
The mid as I described above is a dry, smoky (not in your face type of smoke!) and peppery incense with touch of semi sweet, mellow animalic musk and some rose completely in the background that just mellow things down a little bit. I didn't get major changes till the end.
Projection on my skin is moderate and above average but not very strong and beast mode. longevity is pretty good and I'm getting around 10 hours out of it.
It's a great scent and definitely masculine and formal but the price tag is ridiculous!

P.S: It doesn't smell like David Yurman Limited Edition. no way! maybe the same vibe in general but definitely not the same smell.

Holy smokes! Tribute is as impressive as everyone says it is. It is an equal amount of leather and smoke, mixed with cedar, rose, and vetiver. Dark and smoldering at first, it goes on with the acrid tang of freshly billowing smoke from the priest's censer. The leather note is dark but supple and so smoothly folded into the smoke notes that it takes your nose a while to separate what is smoke and what is leather. The opening is quite pungent, but also beautiful, in that harsh, angular way that phenolic scents often are. The smoke is similar to that in Bois d'Ascese and Jeke, in character if not form, with Tribute's smoke more tightly woven into the other notes.

Although the smoke and leather notes continue on for quite a while, the middle section of the scent comes to the fore and you start to notice the different smokey woods (cedar mostly), roots (vetiver), and leaves (patchouli) jostling around for your attention. The woods/roots/leaves have a resinous quality to them, but also a dry, smoked quality. Fascinating. But then I asked my husband to take a sniff, and he recoiled, spluttering, "Oh God, that is terrible" When I asked him to describe what he smelled, he went down to his wardrobe and brought up these wooden balls he had bought to scent his clothes drawers - "It smells like this," he said, "Raw wood and nothing else. And not a fancy schmancy wood like sandalwood, either, something more common", which I took to mean cedar (I mean, what else could it be?) Don't know why I am including this anecdote except to say that it gave me pause for thought. Sometimes, you just have to listen to the common man, ya know?

Anyway, I loved the way Tribute slowly but surely shed its tough outer layers of smoke and leather to reveal a fleshy, tender rose. I started to pick up more on the dusty, slightly medicinal note of saffron too. Underneath, vetiver continued to provide a resinous, rooty and masculine base for the wonderful rose. I found Tribute to be fascinating, beautiful, and complex. But I could never lust after a perfume that not only is far beyond the reach of my wallet but also disgusts my husband. So, for me, a pleasurable sampling that will go no further than that.

Genre: Leather

When Tribute was announced I wondered how much it would resemble its predecessor, Homage. After all both are attars centered on frankincense and rose Taifi, and how much range for variation could there be? Plenty, as it turns out. Tribute bears no resemblance to Homage whatsoever. In fact, it doesn't smell a whole lot like anything else in the Amouage line, despite employing several house standard ingredients. Whereas Homage is all about rose - seasoned, to be sure, with oudh, citrus, and frankincense - Tribute's rose is not immediately apparent to me. Instead, Tribute opens on a grimly mesmerizing accord of intensely smoky leather, frankincense, and dry, bitter saffron. It's at once craggy, gaunt, and otherworldly. It's also completely devoid of the decadent, plush, floral texture familiar from so many other Amouage scents.

Thought the saffron bows out fairly quickly, the smoke, charred leather and incense remain in place, supported as Tribute develops by a potent, dry, earthy vetiver. Once the vetiver materializes, Tribute begins to echo, (albeit at a distance,) the equally austere charred leather and vetiver accord at the heart of Vero Kern's weird and magnificent Onda. What distinguishes Tribute from that worthy antecedent is the exquisite rose and jasmine accord that follows the vetiver to the surface. While rose is the star performer in several Amouage scents, including Lyric Man, Lyric Woman, and Homage, here it plays an ensemble role, weaving through Tribute's structure to wrap all the smoke and ash in a luxuriant, soft floral blanket. The somber mood established at the start remains intact, but it is softened, elevated, and rendered more complex and full by the rich floral embroidery.

Tribute mellows very slowly on my skin, as the gradually dispelling smoke and tar reveal more of the floral components. After an hour or two of wear, Tribute acquires an added layer of complexity with the emergence of a deep, rounded pipe tobacco note. As the tobacco note swells, its inherent warmth transforms Tribute incrementally from austere to comforting. This transformation transpires over the course of perhaps eight hours, during which Tribute exhibits considerable strength, though like many attars and oils, it wears relatively close. While it does not fill the room, anyone who enters your personal space will perceive it quite clearly. The extended drydown of tobacco, vetiver, and animalic leather lingers for hours as a warm, tightly enveloping skin scent.

Whereas quite a few men have expressed anxiety over wearing the conspicuously floral Homage and Gold Men in public, Tribute offers no grounds for trepidation. In fact, Tribute is a far less “pretty” composition than Gold, Homage, or any other Amouage scent I know, and for that reason I particularly enjoy it. I certainly find it easier than several of the others to wear.

I loved the rose and Jasmine. It went on strong, but sadly for me, did not have longevity. So many perfumes just seem to soak in and vanish. I can usually count on Amouage to stay, but this sample did not.

Totally agree with Iivanita; Tribute is the yin to Homage's yang. Whereas Homage is the Sun, Tribute is a smoldering fire at night under the Moon.

Amazing, intense, supremefrankincense, saffron, floral notes, Jasmine, Rose Taifi, leather, tobacco, cedarwood, patchouli, vetiver The beginnning plunges straight into a gorgeous frankincense with saffron and a floral note; on my skin it takes a while for a nice rose to develop. Jasmine and an intense tobacco merge into a rich cedarwood note, whilst in the later stages a feshness emerges that is vetiver-driven, with patchouli giving it a slightly deeper and rougher edge for a moment. On my skin the incense is alway present, like the backbone of this great fragrance. The quality of the product components is amazing, the overall blending very smooth, and the overall end result is a unique scent. Very good silage an projection. I used a homeopathic amount only and got eight hours of longevity, a perfume-like performance.

Fit for a kingRich, dense, luxurious and enveloping. The foremost notes in this stunner are tobacco, incense, leather, rose & jasmine. The initial smoky blast soon subsides, allowing the pretty florals to shine through more brightly. The density, smoke and leather notes in Tribute initially recall Puredistance M but in Tribute the floral notes are louder and the spices toned down; these differences become more obvious as time passes. As a result I find Tribute more exuberant and uplifting; carmine red rather than mahogany brown. A sultry Shalimar-ish musk is evident in the drydown and is magnified alluringly by increased body heat.A little bit goes a long, long way so there is no need to buy the bigger bottle unless you plan on wearing little else, or like to announce your presence well in advance. A dab or two in the crooks of the elbows and behind the ears is ample. In fact, those tiny samples you can buy from the usual sources are good for several wearings if you don't overdo it.My only reservation is that, even with a shy application, I find it a bit OTT in its outspoken opulence; too overtly beautiful for comfortable day-to-day wear by this non-Sultan (film-star looks notwithstanding). {Review based on a sample obtained in 2011}.Pros: Potent, exotic, beguilingCons: Needs a wallet and crown to match

Sexy, buttery, easily wearable anytime anywhere. Its truly wonderful. Its got all the notes I love, rose, tobacco, incense, leather, vetiver and delivers it so masterfully blended its hard to work out were one note ends and another beings.

I've decided not to buy it though. I already have Cuir de Russe extrait and CdG Avignon and these two together sort of tick all the boxes in two fragrances that Tribute does in one. Plus I have a couple of rose soliflores (including Mukhallat Al Emirates) that keep me happy on that front.

In that context, I simply can't justify the eye-watering price. If money were no object, I'd have snapped it up.

If you love Cuir de Russe extrait but find it a bit too floral or feminine, this is like a more masculine equivalent.

ashes to ashes , dust to dust, tribute to life

this is fruity- smokey addictive combination, very oudhy in the start (fermented fruity note)----after 8 hours goes more smokey...very ashy...

complete opposite of sublime light bright Homage, this one is dark, deep, dense with unbeleivable elegance and refinment of these heavy notes, all natural smelling,

it holds for 4 days on the wool , before it goes to beautiful cedarwood drydown...its multifaceted scent although all covered in dark colours, its never heavy, although projects a mile! 1 drop only!

i love it more then Homage, that oudy-smokey combo is just so arabic in my view

I had heard so many wonderful things about it. I ALSO heard that it had batch variations. The first sample batch had monster projection. Very smokey, hickory smoke. The problem is the sample I tried was very linear. I didn't get the complex dry-down. Just campfire. I was disappointed because I had heard about the Frankincense which is one of my favorite notes. I got none of it. Also, the rose was weak and fleeting.
UPDATE:
I bought a full bottle directly from the Middle East to lower the possibility of getting a bottle that sat around in LuckyScent's warehouse for a year. WOW, it is completely different than the sample I had tried. The smoke was clean with no 'meat' smell, and the rose and frankincense was perfectly balanced. The $600/ounce is because it takes one acre of rose bushes to make just one bottle~ it is a pleasant scent, 30mls would last years because one drop from the glass wand on each side of the neck and one to the chest will last all day!

Bought this tribute in december in amouage shop in Muscat, Oman.
the best oil you can get out of the middle east!!

Got my nose in several attars, but this one stood out as it's simply outstanding.
intriguing character and ungraspable beauty.

Bought my ex the attar homage (chew on this!), for it's the best onecan leave behind when gone: the attar smell.

I get the frankincense right up front and it stays, along with a lot of other notes. I do not always get rose in the drydown, though this morning I did. I'm very sparing with this; bought 1ml decant. If I had a healthier bank account I'd buy this one, tootsweet.

May a relative beginner at frags be honest? This transported me back to hunting deer in northern Minnesota. The overall blast I got hit me right in my memories... of a garbage fire and maybe an ashtray. I believe it is a sign of a divine entity that a frag can smell like those two unattractive "things" and yet be mindblowingly good. This is powerful, powerful stuff.

Sorry if this is not specific. Go find yourself some Tribute.

An incredibly interesting fragrance. Initially deliciously smokey. Woody. Tar. Rose. The great frankincense. Smells like something a witch would spread on a boil. In time Tribute devolves into something that may be more wearable. Some of the off-putting pungency goes away. The rose hangs around. There is definately an undertone of animal that comes out, like urine or the smell of skin baked in the sun at the beach. But it's all balanced and relatively sexy. A real changeling.

A very resinous silver frankincense greats you in the opening of this one. Deep, rich and fantastic. Whereas the other attars I've tried begin with the rose note, the Turkish rose comes into this one a little later and provides more of a support to the frankincense than the main player. It just works out very well. The heart takes you to a deep forest before the ultimate ending of an animalistic leather and rich tobacco that persists for hours. Projection and silage are great on this as is the longevity. Very powerful stuff and really might be the best from the amouage line I've tried. Bottle worthy – oh yeah.