MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 80)
scent of the day: Soul of My Soul, by Elkhaldi
Only second wear—so take this with a grain of salt.
Coming with a multicolored array of roses and a whole bunch of toptier oud, Soul of My Soul really seems to zoom in on the sweet earthy side of Malik al-Taif even in the first hour. That brings it even closer to Attainment 2. Even though Soul of My Soul’s oud melange beats out those other two easily, Malik (a more sandalwood-incense take on oud-rose) and Attainment (a more spicy-piney take on oud-rose) are better crafted—Attainment by far the best on that front. My take, and a rather silly diagnostic, is that if Soul if My Soul speaks to you more than these other two, you really need to start swiping neat oud oils if you are not already. More than either of the three, and this is because of its spotlight on oud, it speaks to that sort of fragrance user most.
The earthiness of Soul of My Soul grows but in a more vegetal rooty sweet direction, with hints of the unstoppably gorgeous Nectar Royale paste—a link to Violette Iriani. If Sultan Pasha is the king of attars (which is what is said even though my journey carved a path away from his work), then Maher is the king of pastes. The blending with Maher tends to be muddy like many artisinal perfumers (save Bortnikoff and Ensar). It is so muddy in many that it looks Prin’s work look suit-and-tied. But Maher’s leaning on these core pastes, or whatever that core DNA is, nearly makes that muddiness “flaw” no big deal. Indeed, for those of us who like a lo-fi and garage-band sound full of imperfections (as opposed to the sort of clean perfection we fine in say Geza Schoen or Corticiotto in the niche realm or Bortnikoff and Ensar in the artisanal), this muddiness will be added charm. For what it is worth, Sundar from Amphora strikes a really good balance between craft and that authentic indie feel—just right in the middle: decent blending (but not so much to seem too inauthentic and buttoned up and schooled, which is the direction Ensar is going in) and yet also quality ingredients (but not so quality it seems to compete with Elkhaldi).
When you compare the two, Attainment seems crafted with a more skilled hand than Soul of My Soul. But the oud there in Attainment (barn-leather Indian whose carnality is boosted by civet and musk) is more of the popular sort in the intro artisanal space. So it can come off less unique, more generic. Soul of My Soul gives us oud fireworks that rival what we get in Ensar. Attainment has more of that barn animal in pine forest feel (pineyness brought by frankinsence, Siberian musk). But the ouds here in Soul (Sri Lankan, Thai, Papuan, Burmese) together push the rose into that molasses-booze texture and mossy myrhh sweetness like in Bilal 2. That makes it different from the waxy texture (Bushman candle) and leathery metallics (castoreum) we get in Attainment. Anyone who likes Bilal and Yaaseen’s style of composition in general will like Elkhaldi a lot. They seem made for one another and should do a joint release. That would rock the fragrance community most definitely.
But yeah, the ouds are where Soul of My Soul sings. At least on that one vector, the oud vector, Soul of My Soul makes Malik and Attainment feel not only less opulent but generic and even quaint in comparison. For one, it makes the superamber generic-incense base of the Areej stand out like a sore thumb. And it makes us say about Attainment at the drydown: “Really, fucking indian oud and castor—again?”
Yes, niche and designers are held on a tight leash by the big aromachemical companies and their lobbists, who—as a means to force perfumers to turn to the big aromachemical houses for ingredients (how sick can you get?)—go through great efforts to get innocuous naturals (like oakmoss) banned on the basis of incredibly low standards (a small rash in two percent of the population) under questionable conditions (leave the material on your skin under a bandage undisturbed for days on end)—as much effort as tobacco companies once did to raise skepticism for the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer. Artisanal is not held by such a tight leash. But that does not mean that there is not a lot of genericness here too: forced releases working with same 5 core ingredients (rose, oud, musk, sandalwood, ambergris) that seem to be as much a requirement for a perfume to be artisanal as an infinity scarf is to be a woke SJW on campus.
Soul of my Soul is no exception here. It comes off as noticeably generic in the artisanal space. It does not have that newness like TSVGA once brought or that apparently Wasif Reza now brings. This makes sense, though. Not only do we get the core ingredients of artisnal theater here in Soul of My Soul, in the deep drydown we get that matchstick oudiness that nearly a 100 of my fragrances give me.
In order to rein in my claims about Soul of My Soul’s genericness, however, we should consider the following four points. (1) Everything is generic on some level. That is because everything has some level of commonality with other things beyond it—and, indeed, at the deepest levels with everything else. Humans have in common with squid for example that they are carbon based. Humans have in common with silicone-based creatures on, say, a planet of Vega that they are material. Only that which is utterly alien to anything else (ab-solus, cut-off and alone being alone), only that which has nothing in common with anything else according to every way of looking at it, would not be generic. This point, while relevant, does not rescue Soul of My Soul too much. After all, even on more everyday senses of the term (where, for example, Purple Kinam would be highly unique in the artisanal space), Soul of My Soul is very generic. (2) This ashy matchstick drydown—one of the big grounds for my calling Soul of My Soul generic—only seems played to me since I have smelled and own a whole bunch of quality Ensars, and these tend to have that drydown. (3) Whereas Ensars themselves so often tend to come with a castoreum quality to the matchstick dry down, here we get this envelop of elven fruity glow. It is a magical aroma that is based off the in-house pastes somehow. And it is much louder and more prominent—one might even say to a cloying degree—in Violette Iriani. Assuming no synthetics here, one charm of that paste-base core—Maher’s signature (and straight up on its own one of the best aromas I have ever smelled and is in the runnign for the best thing ever to hit perfumery)—is that it does something very similar (elven, glowy, aquatic) that we see from Sultan Pasha releases like Sacred Scarab and from Prin’s and Rajesh’s Haxan and from Corticiotto’s Mal-Aime. Only here in Soul of My Soul the sweet watery glow, which I struggle to put my finger on but it is violet in color to my mind, is coming from non-lab materials. (4) The oud styles and oud quality—that is one glimmer of uniqueness here, especially with that indomitable Elkhaldi base of the paste material.
Yes, the ouds here are the star. In Malik the rose is star and the Taif story. In Attainment the composition as a whole is the star (an oud-rose balance) along with the extreme spiritualism. Here it is the oud, especially as seen through that sweet animalic lense of the paste. Four main terroirs of oud are on display and the collective effect is almost like that of fruity-boozy Cambodian I know from Yaaseen (even though no Cambodian ouds are in here). Sri Lankan (Silani) oud, which comes off like yuzu and vetiver and fern all in one, gives us a refreshing bitterness—that of a lemon-herb black tea. Thai (Khao Yai) oud, which comes off like fruity tobacco, gives us a decayed wood feel with slight hints (not as much as I get in other trats) of root-beer sarsaparilla. Papuan oud, which comes off as guava and mineralic here, gives us a 20-50-30 cross between Merauke’s peaty-swamp facet of swamps, Port Moresby’s electric-eucalyptus facet of coasts, and Wamena’s coniferous-mineral facet of mountains. Burmese oud, which comes off as blackstrap molasses (the least sweet and most bitter and mineralic), gives us a 30-30-40 cross between Indonesia-style incensey woods, Hanain-style mildew, and dusty Indian cheesy funk.
These new Elkhaldis need to sit. People started selling these off like hot stones right away—especially Kasturi Cola. But I always like to give frags like these much more time. I mean, I have had Ensars come to me utterly travel shocked (shaken, full of bubbles that effect how top-notes come off: flat, weak, less integrated) and might even need to mature a bit in bottle from some oxygen and even some esterification. After time—patience paying off—they opened up. Even your mood and expectations can color how you perceive it. Often too, although this applies more to newbs in the journey, your brain literally needs to learn to smell these things. These Elkhaldis especially need time because the ouds in them are quite unique and give off aromas that aficionados can learn to appreciate.
Soul of My Soul, again, stresses the earthiness of the rose-oud compositions we see. Malik started off very bright with its rose—cocoa-powdered bright rose but over time people have noticed and I’ve noticed my own bottle that has gotten very earthy and mixed with a more melted chocolate feel. Soul of My Soul jumps, as I said, right to the earthiness: it has an under-dirt feel almost. That said, Soul of My Soul—unlike both Attainment and Malik—is much less brown in color when it comes to vibe. That is another distinguishing mark. It comes off purple—like imagine a guave-spiked molasses with a strong violet tinge.
One thing I dislike about the house is the Aaron Terrence Hughes style cult-like aura: thin-skinned perfumer and a rabid fanbase ready to pounce to protect that skin—this whole atmosphere, palpable throughout the Facebook groups, that makes you feel bad to criticize the house or the perfumer. However much I rag on house like Jinx for the whole hipster throwback aesthetic of fake blue-collarism (the East Coast version of Portlandia anchor tattoos), that is rather innocuous compared to the big Donald Trump energy that comes from the Elkhaldi house: you must use the very right language and follow all these rules—or else. That narcissistic totalitarian way of being is as overcompensating as a red sports car and a toupe. Silencing and shaming in order to control a narrative, which is what we see here (even if soft and indirect and merely suggested), always turns me off.
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 80)
the “unreliable narrator” label burdizzos literary challenges to taboo
too scoliotic for chest compressions
the burden of the future cast off in old age
having believed for too long to show any signs of doubt now
great it is for others beside you to be great
hiding—hiding being dead—behind the resume virtues
advertisements for Coca Cola enfolded in rainforests
polar bear coats rusty around the neck
how long have whites been so antagonistic to silence?
mental models of the world are as real as what we see through their filter
whoring in LA on a slow real-estate month
witch pillers, do not flatter yourselves too much: girls were looking for escape
too many little girls coming in and out for the cab driver not to have been on staff
in the flamboyant pose of a victorious matador frozen on his back, the dreamer hunts though the supermarket in increasing agitation over inability to find the orzo
the shakedown groups use their privilege, Hollywood-backed and even state-sponsored, to spread a narrative denied by that very privilege: that they are marginalized victims
the shit-does-not-even-matter wisdom that took decades to break through and kill your performance anxiety resulted also unfortunately in killing your spirit to live
step back from unrequited-crush blues, if only for a second, and behold how such savagery worthwhiles life
robbing them because you need money versus robbing them because it kills you inside to know— just by their vocabulary—they are better than you
directing our attention to how mental illnesses undermine moral responsibility protects our faith that it can be found in us (even though nothing we do is ultimately up to us either)
watching people get brain damage in real time—another like
jungle tribesmen in Fruit of the Loom underwear
God aside, who is more embarrassed by niggers than black people?
charity belligerent enough to ignore the receiver’s pleas that the supply has now gotten too much to handle
lifting the lowest up means, for the forces of evil (no matter how caring they might present themselves), leveling the top into something closer to a monocrop
the more perfume you spray or swipe the sooner your nose goes blind; the more you acquire the duller each lands—excess in sensual pursuit ultimately humbles you to restraint, where denial becomes indulgence
so many of us praying and yet so many of us scoffing at telepathy
the nature of the knock was clear even through gloved knuckles
bears trained up to snarl in photos—the public awed by the bravery of hunters
lunch table percussion
witnessing your sibling’s life take off beyond all expectations, leaving you behind to languish in hometown mediocrity
Allah, mentioned more than any subject, was as real as 2 + 3 = 5 at our homes and schools
the challenge of appearing the fool, as one almost always has to do for the sake of song
language reflects, constrains, and liberates consciousness
shocked enough by the result, punishment was deemed unnecessary
an intentional rock inside the snowball
each day watching the same film, more stable than a good friend until you start looking once again
that point in our lifetimes when there is not enough time to make new old friends
owned by what we do not own
replace clapping—a microaggression, an ableist gesture of toxic masculinity, with snapping fingers and jazz hands
bubble hopping—skipping the grooves of habit like a record—by letting a computer app randomly select your doings for the day
on the supermarket sheet cake for the wake is a close-up photo of the dead lady Harlem Shaking at her favorite club
avoiding psychologists, knowing that we are too gullible when it comes to believing what they say is so
crestfallen at your window, feeling that nothing could bring you into the lives of the strangers outside
