Zoologist
Zoologist
121 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The aldehydes crack across your skin like struck flint, immediately jolted by civet's feral undertone and a sharp lemon that feels almost astringent. Within moments, you're confronted with something genuinely animalic rather than decorative—this opening refuses to coddle.
As the initial brightness fades, the wine note blooms into something almost vinous and oxidised, whilst blue lotus adds a waxy, slightly indolic floral sweetness. The plum grounds this middle passage with deeper fruit character, and the spice accords—juniper, frankincense, myrrh—begin their slow architectural work, creating a resinous, almost temple-like density that feels increasingly meditative.
What remains is largely the base's skeletal framework: a blend of benzoin's vanilla warmth, oakmoss's weathered dryness, and myrrh's papery incense, with amber and labdanum providing occasional sweet whispers. The composition becomes increasingly intimate and static here, clinging close to skin rather than projecting, ultimately fading to a faint, resinous memory.
Sacred Scarab arrives as an exercise in calculated contradiction—a fragrance that marries the profane with the sacred through sheer olfactory audacity. The aldehydes bite with a metallic sharpness against the civet's animalic musk, immediately establishing this as no gentle affair. This is temple incense filtered through a butcher's shop, where the wine note in the heart doesn't smell of fruit so much as fermented darkness, joining forces with blue lotus to create an almost hypnotic floral density that feels ancient and vaguely threatening.
What distinguishes Sacred Scarab is Sultan Pasha's refusal to let any single accord dominate. The base presents itself as a densely packed spice cabinet—frankincense and myrrh tangle with juniper's piney bite whilst benzoin and labdanum provide a honeyed, almost medicinal sweetness beneath. Oakmoss adds a structural dryness that prevents the composition from becoming cloying, whilst the styrax and amber create a resinous underbelly that feels oddly precious, like amber beads worn smooth by centuries of handling.
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4.1/5 (134)