Sanae Intoxicants Smoking Rose collage by Rachel©

Is there a note you thought you would never enjoy only to have your opinion flip 180 degrees?  I am sure we could all think of at least one.  While rose was never a hated scent, I certainly wasn’t drawn to rose-centric perfumes at the start of my fragrant journey.  I thought of rose as the scent you only found in a basket of potpourri or that fresh, dewy note so prominent in the Tea Rose worn as your great-aunt’s signature scent.  While rose in this manner has many fans, there seemed to be so many more interesting scents for me to focus my time on.

When I was living in the Middle East, I was almost constantly surrounded by rose fragrances without being “aware” of them due to my limited  understanding of what rose perfumes smelled like.  It wasn’t until I was able to try fragrances such as Tauer’s Incense Rose that my nose was opened to a world of entirely new and amazing roses.  Suddenly, I started smelling rose everywhere I went; wafting from the Arab fathers dropping their children off at school in the morning, mixed with green incense in the bukhoor burning at shops and homes and even mixed into the creamy Persian desserts I had come to love.  Each version is a different take on rose but, none matching the ones I had grown up with; I was a rose scent convert!

Sanae Barber courtesy of the perfumer©

When I first smelled Sanae Intoxicants Smoking Rose, I knew this was going to be my kind of rose fragrance – a rich, woody, balsamic rose.  American Perfumer Sanae Barber spent time living in the Middle East so perhaps her experience has woven its way into this creation. Smoking Rose, (a mitti attar which is baked earth with sandalwood) has the richness of true Middle Eastern attars where the rose is lifted by fresh green wood, mixed with lavender and the spice of geranium.  As an all-natural extrait de parfum the sillage is excellent and longevity superb.  Like an attar, Smoking Rose benefits from being warmed by your skin. What stays rather linear on a blotter or scarf, blooms into a much more nuanced creation when anointed on your pulse points. As it wears, there is a pleasant muskiness swirled into the rose and woody notes that you may miss on paper or fabric.

collage unsplash

Sanae Intoxicants Smoking Rose conjures an image of local farmers harvesting Taif roses on the rocky mountainsides of Saudi Arabia and Oman while fires heat the copper distillery to create the precious essential oils.  Bunches of lavender dry in shade of the sunbaked clay storeroom while burning frankincense from the nearby mosque quietly entwines itself throughout the scene.  Despite the name, Smoking Rose is not what I consider an overly smoky scent.  It does not create the image of sitting next to a bonfire or burning rose petals. The smokiness comes not in a literal sense but, from a general shrouding of the rose as if through a veil of green incense and the charred ashes left behind after a fire. While rose and oud is the most traditional combination, Ms. Barber has replaced the oud with a greener, more balsamic Peru Balsam and a hefty dose of dense herbs which keep the traditional Arabic structure while providing us something new and quite meditative.

If you haven’t found your perfect rose fragrance, I highly recommend you give Sanae Intoxicants Smoking Rose a sniff.

Notes: Rose, Grass, Sandalwood, Peru Balsam, Sandalwood, Geranium and Lavender

Disclaimer: Review is based on a bottle generously provided by the brand.  My opinions are my own.

Rachel Watson, Senior Contributor

 

Sanae Intoxicants Smoking Rose© Sanae Intoxicants

Thanks to the generosity of Sanae Intoxicants, we have a draw for a 30 ml bottle of Smoking Rose for one registered reader Worldwide (excluding Russia and Italy). You must register or your comment will not count. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest about Rachel’s review and where you live. Draw closes 4/13/2022

Sanae is pronounces as sah-nigh-ae

Please read Sanae Barber’s Profiles in American Perfumery here and Cynthia’s review of Nightcap. Sanae was featured in Contributing Editor Sherri Sebastian’s True Gifts from Independent perfumers

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