Ghilaf-e-Kaaba Attar, The Rising Phoenix Perfumery

First, a piece of nomenclature – any attar bearing the word ‘Kaaba’ in its title refers to the famous black cube that stands in the center of Islam’s most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, around which the sea of Muslim pilgrims move during the annual hajj, a special ritual called the tawaf. The pilgrimage to Mecca for the Hajj is the sacred duty of all adult Muslims, who must make the trip at least once in their lives. The Kaaba is there to protect a sacred black stone that was placed there by Muhammad in 605 A.D. Ghilaf is the Urdu word for the black and gold cloth that covers the Kaaba, literally meaning “sheath” (Ghilaf seems to be analogous to kiswah, the Arabic name for the black cloth). If you think about it, it’s a clever name for any rose-oud attar because the cloth itself, with its band of gold threads richly embroidered onto a matte black background, is a good metaphor for the age-old contrasts of the age-old oud and rose pairing, the bright sweetness of rose glancing off the darkness of oud like a ray of sunlight. In my experience, rose-oud attars are sublime only when two things happen, the first being a high content load of superior raw materials (all natural), and the second, when there is a perfect balance achieved between the light and dark elements of the blend. The first, in attar perfumery, will depend on how much the attar maker and his customers care about the quality of the raw materials. Some people prefer the modern horse power of synthetics, even in attars, and therefore, there are attars that smell less natural (but more diffusive) than others. Other attar makers – usually small, artisan attar makers whose customers care deeply about the naturalness of raw materials – go to great lengths to secure the best rose oil, the best wild oud, tincture their own materials, and so on, all with the purpose of simply setting the materials in the blend like polished jewels and allowing them to shine as nature intended. The Rising Phoenix Perfumery is one of those small, artisan attar making outfits that cares first and foremost about having the most beautiful raw materials to showcase in its blends. Ghilaf-e-Kaaba features a rare, steam-distilled Gallica rose otto that displays a bright but silky character – not as jammy or beefy as a Turkish rose, and not as lemony-sharp as a Ta’if rose. The oud is a wild Hindi oil from Assam, a forceful, slightly raw-edged spice and leather affair that comes at you all guns blazing but later dying back to reveal a stately bone structure. If the first, the raw materials, is more a question of selection, then the second is a question of alchemy, that strange magic that happens when a talented attar maker knows what to do with his bounty. Balance in attars and mukhallats is more difficult to achieve than one might imagine, because of the way naturals behave, continuing to evolve and even deepen over time. In a way, rose notes are like citrus oils in that their brightness is volatile and changeable, while the dark mustiness of oud go through its own series of changes way down in the basenotes, from cowhide, to leather, to woodsmoke, to herbs, and so on. An attar maker must consider how each raw material will behave and at what time. Ghilaf-e-Kaaba surprises me because normally, in rose-oud attars, one note dominates before giving way to the other. But with this particular attar, sometimes it smells like oud, sometimes like rose, without the actual overall scent ever changing from one moment to the next. From the sample top, I smell a deep, fiery rose otto; on the skin, the first thing I smell is the pungent, spicy Hindi oud. Moments later, although I can’t say that the attar has changed or evolved, I can suddenly smell the rose, but not the oud. At the rare times the two notes appear together, the blend smells excitingly coarse and strong, like a retsina wine, full of sour, woody tannins and turpentine. Both the main raw materials used here are strong and a bit fierce: the Gallica rose otto burns with a purity that could cut through cloth, and the Hindi oud, although smooth, has a feral edge reminiscent of just-cured leather skins. After a rough (but exciting) start, this very potent blend starts to relax on the skin and meander into a long, languid drydown of smoky, dry leather and woods, tinged with the sour brightness of rose petals. A custom blend of floral attars, labdanum, and benzoin is there to support the rose and oud from the base: I can’t say that my nose picks up on any of that, and the drydown is not ambery, sweet, or powdery in any way – the resins are just there for ballast. In other words, this attar is single-minded; it doesn’t deviate once from the rose-oud script. Ghilaf-e-Kaaba is very Arabic in tone (obviously) but even if it does tread the centuries-old, tried and tested route of rose-oud pairings, the sheer quality of the raw materials distinguishes it. It lasts forever and is phenomenally strong or concentrated, a tiny drop keeping me pungently scented for 24 hours. I admire very much both the quality of the raw materials used and the balance with which they are showcased in the blend. This is a rose-oud attar for purists and those for whom excellent raw materials are a prerequisite. :