The Silk Road’s legendary spice route from China to Arabia winds its way across the face of Epic for Men from Amouage. It is a very unisex fragrance that is an enjoyable swirl of spices, woods, incense, golden sweetness, and creaminess, but it is neither the fragrance that I expected nor very “epic” in nature. Not now….
Original Turandot poster via Wikipedia.
Epic Man (hereinafter just “Epic”) is an eau de parfum that was created by Randa Hammami and released in 2009. The inspiration was two-fold: the legendary Silk Road and Puccini’s Turandot opera which is set in China but based on a tale involving a Persian princess and a deadly riddle. First in Fragrance has the company’s complete press description:
The theme of this latest Amouage fragrance is the legendary aria from Puccini´s unfinished opera, Turandot. The legend says that one day the composer Puccini completed the opera and then buried the completed work somewhere in the sands along the Silk Road. The last act of the opera, it is said, was an incomparable aria, which could not possibly be sung by a human voice…
The legendary city of Ubar in Oman is the starting point for a journey in search of this missing aria, which leads us along the Silk Road through the Orient and over the highest mountains in the world – to China. The way of the ancient caravans, that carried silk and other treasures over many hundreds of miles, where tea, gold, pearls and jade from China where exchanged for precious silver frankincense from the Oman – a legendary land where the valuable raw materials can be found that were used in the composition of this new Amouage fragrance.
Caravan on the Silk Road via uzcaravan.com
