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Bravo to Sultan Pasha for being one of those oil/attar makers and natural material gurus who actually has a respect and grasp of classic perfumery, clearly loves perfume, collects it, and knows it intimately. It shows in his attars which are not just fantastic, rare, high quality materials, unsupported by any compositional skill, they are like odes to classic French technique in oil form. The problem I have with attars is that I don't like the way they wear, give me an alcohol perfume any day, and my prayers have been answered, thanks Zoologist. Instantly, think big, rich, powdery, Mitsuoko chypre, meets aldehydic floral opening, that blue lotus accord (perhaps even the stuff itself, don't see why not it's Pasha afterall) and I detect a trace of jasmine and ylang or even osmanthus, it has a certain dry, summery, chalky freshness, then into downbeat drydown of resins and woods, ever detectable at the 'back' of the composition. It's fantastic, a real love letter to perfume, and a proper treat for perfume enthusiasts who love um' traditional. I thought it was great. Pretty spectacular actually.
Sacred Scarab is a scent of bitter, lemony aldehydes and earthy, murky, dusky musks, and when I say earthy, I don’t mean damp, loamy garden soil, but rather dusty clay, and subterranean strata of sedimentary rock, digging so far down into the earth you encounter tenebrous geological formations and stygian crystalline structures ostensibly connected to the earth’s deep history–and yet to your unbelieving eyes or mine, wholly alien and otherworldly. It’s a fragrance that evokes at least a minor feeling of, if not the reality of a crumbling collapse of space and time, the prelude to the ecstatic rites of an ancient mystery cult of earth and stone. That initial mineralogical melodrama is breathtaking, and I probably enjoy those 15-20 minutes of the fragrance best, but the next stage and the dry down, a sort of "burnished date/sticky raisin resin incense scattered in the dry wood of a smooth cedar dish" vibe, is lovely as well and worth the wait, if you find the early sniffs are too overwhelming. I can’t decide if this scent is a prayer or a protest, a comfort or a curse, and I deeply love the unknowable mystery of that.