Vintage Shalimar, Opium, and Lagerfeld cologne, modern Salome, Ambre Precieux, Tom Ford‘s Tobacco Vanille, eau de parfums versus eau de toilettes from all eras — these may not seem like automatic choices to combine with Indian-style soliflore attars from Areej Le Doré‘s new History of Attar Collection, but that is what I did. And the results were fascinating! In fact, they were significantly better than my experiences in layering various Areej attars with each other — to the point where I’ve discovered a few new fragrance loves.
Based on my experiences, I’d strongly argue that layering the Areej attars with Western mixed or blended fragrances is successful in a way that layering the attars with each other is not. I think the latter is a mistake whereas the former demonstrates how the attars can either fix major structural and raw material problems in a bad scent formula, provide positive olfactory additions to a good fragrance, significantly improve the concentration and body of lighter scents, or some combination thereof. Today, I’ll share with you my various experiments in both genres.