Amouage Rose Aqor, image  courtesy of Amouage©

Rose perfumes seem to have been with us always. They were sacred to the Egyptian deity Isis and the Greek goddess, Aphrodite, whose temples were strewn with fragrant petals. Roman fountains throughout the city frothed with rosewater. But the highly concentrated, oil-based perfumes known as “attar” have its origins in Egypt, where in the Middle Ages physician Ibn al-Baitar became the first person known to have distilled the first rose-based attar. A thousand years later, Amouage has come out with a stunning new rose attar, Rose Aqor, part of its new collection of attars.  Created by the immensely talented Cecile Zarokian, Amouage Rose Aqor is sensual, lush, textural and so breathtakingly lovely that Aphrodite herself must be looking down from Olympus enviously. This my friends, is the stuff of goddesses, witches and princesses.

 

Rose Aqor begins like the first words of an old fairytale. So draw near my friends, and let me tell you the tale of the holy rose.

Cecile Zarokian, image via Amouage

Once upon a time, there was a rose, the most beautiful in all the land, and she grew near a great temple whose incense floated like ground fog across forest floors and down into the valleys. So beautiful was this rose that the king himself, riding by the temple one evening, was drawn by its piercing aroma. He followed its scent until, coming upon the temple, a perfume of such immense beauty overcame him. He stopped his horse, dismounted and, as the scent enfolded him, was struck with wonderment. This, friends, was the rose centifolia, a many-petaled flower whose scent was that of a thousand lesser roses at once. Her fragrance was dark berries and honey, ruby velvet and goose-down cushions, the familiar sweetnesses of childhood and darker, worldly pleasures all woven together with silken thread. Her odors unfolded like a secret, quiet and close, until she slowly peeled away her petals and revealed a full, sumptuous glory. Remembering the smell of his mother’s garden, and the warm, honeyed skin of his lost beloved in the rose’s exhaled loveliness, the king was overcome. He put his hands to his face and wept.

Rose centifolia, image Amouage

At that moment, dusk fell, and a great ceremony began in the temple, where inside the priests lit golden lanterns and silver censers. Rare frankincense filled the air in great puffy clouds. They brought garlands of fresh roses and rare sandalwood and laid them on the altar as their chanting filled the cavernous reaches of the vaulted ceiling. But the king was so overcome with the rose’s beauty he could not bring himself to wait for the ritual to be done. Risking blasphemy, he flung open the door of the temple, and threw himself upon the altar to inhale the scent that had so intoxicated him. A hundred thousand roses gave up their treasures as he lay amongst their blossoms. The priests looked on with horror.

The king said: “I must have this fragrance with me always: in the mornings, when the sun rouses me sleep, in the afternoons, to astonish and please my guests, and in the evenings, when affairs of state have wearied me and the moon shines coldly in the sky, she will sing me sweetly to sleep.” He demanded that the rose be brought to the palace where, he declared, she would grow all along its walls. But the priests shook their heads gravely and refused to part with the rose, saying she was holy to the goddess and only the goddess could keep her.

Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Temple Gardens by Henry arthur Payne (1908), public domain image

But the king would none of it, and demanded on pain of death that the rose be brought to him the next day. He ordered the priests to bring him the roses that grew along the temple the next morning at dawn. As the sun rose, the priests wailed a sorrowful prayer. They placed the rose and her brethren in a cask of sacred sandalwood, resting on a bed of hallowed soil. The rose was planted all along the palace walls as the king had decreed. The temple fell silent and darkness shrouded it from view.  But the rose was unhappy in her new home, and no amount of water or sunshine would keep her from withering. Twenty maidens sung to her, the palace physician tended her, but she would not release her scent. Without the incense of the temple to hold her, and the sandalwood of the altar to support her, sadness overcame her and she pined and wasted. The goddess, stirred from her ancient rest, saw this and was angered.

“Who steals the blossoms from my temple and defiles my holy place?” she cried. Her words shook the palace walls. A great darkness fell across the land; the birds ceased their song and the moon hid her face. “Who is this thief so bold to steal my sacred offerings? Let him come forth or all shall perish!” The king was a brave man, and though afraid, he stepped out onto the battlements and addressed the skies:

“Twas I that took the blessed roses from your garden, o holy goddess,” said he. “I was these seven years without my wife, she who died bringing life into this world. When I smelled the perfume of your roses, o goddess, I smelled her honey skin and the rose oils of her hair. I was these many years absorbed in great matters, and the mantle of duty hund heavy on my shoulders. When I smelled the perfume of your roses, o goddess, I caught the odors of my childhood and my mother’s garden. I remembered her sweetness as she sang me to sleep, and the odor of wild berries that grew beside our kitchen. I was happy, o goddess, for the first time in so long that I had forgot all happiness existed. Forgive me, o great one, and do not punish my people for my folly” The king fell prostrate in supplication and promised, in penance, to offer his life.

Detail of Primavera Botticelli 

Seeing him so moved, the goddess softened. “My rose is indeed a wonder and can restore all who smell it to joy. Such is your love for my rose, great king, that I shall grant you this: return what you have taken, make offerings of Omani frankincense and rare sandalwood for a hundred nights, and I shall, once a year, allow the priests to bring you 12 drops of my rose’s essence in a glass vial, one for each month, that you may remember all the days that brought you such happiness.” The king swore upon his honor to obey and the goddess kept her word. Once yearly, a tiny bottle holding twelve drops of rose attar from her holy temple was brought by her priests. And for one day each month, the king knew joy again.

 

Over the centuries, the priests left fragments of this tale behind for the royal house of Amouage. Rose Aqor, which still holds the loveliest rose in all the hand, rare Omani frankincense smelling of time and of temple smoke, and the smoothest, creamiest sandalwood is here.

Notes: Rose centifolia, frankincense, sandalwood.

Disclaimer: Sample of Amouage Rose Aqor kindly provided by a team member opinions, as always, are my own.

 

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

capture of a video courtesy of Amouage

A note from Cecile Zarokian on her creative process: “I’d really like to highlight how I felt when walking on the Sayq Plateau, from village to village among the rose bushes following the aflaj irrigation channels. This very place had been the inspiration for the Rose Aqor attar, named after the first village, Al Aqor, so of course I had heard a lot about it, seen plenty of pictures, done some research…  But being there, on top of the cliff with this breathtaking view of crazy green terraces rose fields contrasting with the dry dark rocks of Jebel Akhdar was so much more intense and real -and at the same time, it strangely felt like home… Amouage Rose Aqor opens with the verticality of pink pepper to climb up the cliff and discover the colorful rose fields in full bloom; a complex, rich, velvety rose fragrance then blooms thanks to Geranium essence and unusual amounts of Centifolia Rose absolute, married with a mineral and smoky Frankincense essence reminding of the smoky rose water.  Patchouli oil and mineral notes echo the soil of the mountains in which the rosebushes are firmly rooted.-Cecile Zarokian

 

Thanks to the generosity of a team member we have a .07 ml sample of Rose Aqor attar for a registered reader in the US, UK or EU. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest about Lauryn’s  fairytale,and where you live. Draw closes 4/25/2022

Please read Sr. Contributor Rachel Watson’s reviews of Amouage Incense Rori and Orris Waken here

Contributor Michael Devine’s review of Amouage Oud Ulya and Saffron Hamra here

Cecile Zarokian was Michelyn’s perfumer of the year 2021

Renaud Salmon was Michelyn’s Creative Director of the Year 2021

Amouage Epic 56 was amongst Michelyn and Ida’s Top 10 best perfumes of 2021

Amouage Silver Oud was one of Rachel Watson’s and Steven Gavrielatos’ Top Ten best perfumes of 2021

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