DSH Perfumes Musc al Madina and image from CNN traveler digitalized by Editor Nicoleta Tomsa
Today is not always where one wants to be. The draining drone of lawnmowers, blaring intrusion of car alarms, the visual cacophony of cat memes, computer glitches and infomercials, can be wearing, exhausting, especially in these times. On such days, when modern weighs heavy, the past can call like a shofar over the millennia. Muslin scarves furl and dip to the vagaries of the breeze, catches of music strange but familiar, reaching out from fairytales and history books. And, in the sand-strewn air, there is a fragrance that pulls you towards like a silken rope. It smells of heated embraces in the great shadows of the temple, coffee wafting from unseen alleyways. DSH Perfumes Musc al Madina floats like something elusive and ancient carried by a warm and hospitable wind.
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, image via Instagram (colorized by Michelyn)
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s 2016 creation, DSH Perfumes Musc al Madina, was inspired by the traditional practice of mixing musk into the mortar of sacred buildings, and by “the image of people taking pilgrimages to the holy cities of Islam and smelling the musk in the buildings as they are warmed by the sun was also in my mind,” she relates.
Art by Abdulnasser Gharem
With its curl of spices, dry oud, and heavy-lidded sensuality, Musc al Madina’s seductions burn as slowly as a temple oil lamp. On first inhalation, it seems hardly there at all; the musk in the top is skin-like and quiet, soapy-sweet. But soon, everything changes. Arabian coffee rises like hot steam, bittersweet and vaporous. No one does coffee notes like Spencer Hurwitz. Here, it has the slight mustiness of the cardamom-laced coffee served throughout the Middle East, with a smoky hint of roasting over an open fire, as it was hundreds of years ago.
(The echoing call of muezzin begins as the afternoon sun hangs red over the minarets)
Coffee ritual, image from “The Bedouins of Saudi Arabia” by Thierry Mauger, 1988
As the musk warms on the skin, something deliciously animalic starts to purr. The musk weaves between the odors of clean skin and bodily pleasures.
(Cymbals ting, muted bleats of horn cry from far away, nearby)
A whiff of dry oud, faint at first, catches. It is bone dry and woody, almost splintery, like the cracks and striations of old cedar. As the oud inches forward, it intensifies but remains bone dry and medicinal, almost spiritous, like light blended scotch. I do not know if Spencer-Hurwitz used real ambergris in this perfume – it is not listed in the notes – but at times, I would swear it is here. A tang of salt and mineral come through along with ambergris’ characteristic richness. The musk becomes fuller bodied still, bringing with it hints of black pepper and cardamom and aged leather.
Photo by Ahmad Safri Yusop on flickr and Musc al Madina fused by Editor Nicoleta Tomsa
By nighttime, the night air beyond my window is cool. But DSH Perfumes Musc al Madina glows like invisible embers on my skin, warm and caressing. Musc al Madina, like Spencer- Hurwitz’s astonishing Onycha, created at roughly the same time, stirs a longing for that timeless day all of us retreat to in our minds when now becomes too much. For these few hours, I can close my eyes and breathe in the smells of oud and resin, of animal and shoreline, and feel connected to something older, more venerable than the technology I use to write this and the rehearsed voices of the television in the next room.
(I hear a woman’s voice singing a love song with words I do not know, and the thrum of strings)
Notes: Artemisia, Chinese geranium, coffee absolute, Indonesian vetiver, musk, oude, spice notes, Arabian myrrh.
Disclaimer: Sample of DSH Musc al Madina kindly sent to me by DSH Perfumes. My opinions are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Thanks to the generosity of DSH Perfumes, we have a 10 ml roller pen or sprayer of DSH Perfumes Musc al Madina EDP or Voile de Parfum for one registered reader worldwide. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what appeals to you about DSH Perfumes Musc al Madina based on Lauryn’s review,. Draw closes 8/24/2020.
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