Dewaniya (2017) Sultan Pasha Attar

Imagine you are invited in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul by Sultan Mehmed II somewhere around 1470. You are sitting in the large domed diwan, where some bakhoor (Hindi oud, myrrh, frankincense, and opoponax) has been burning for a long time at low temperature. Long enough that they have turned the air of the room sweet and smoky. You are sipping some Persian saffron-flavoured tea whilst wearing a blend of medicinal Chinese, incensy Cambodian/Vietnamese and resinous Assamese ouds. Smell of dry herbs and spices wafting from Büyük Çarşı. It is autumn and the air is crisp and cold. So when the sun warms up the area, you get all those aroma whilst sitting there enjoying your tea with some dates and other dry fruits.

Dewaniya (2017)

Dewaniya opens with a big and regal smell of ouds. It smells like a composition of mostly pure aged ouds from different regions - incensy Cambodian/Vietnamese and subdued leather and mildly sweet resinous and incensy Assamese, and bitter and medicinal Chinese (wild Sinensis) oud oils, where some florals, resins and animalics play supporting roles.

I then briefly get a herbaceous and silvery astringent tea-like smell – probably associated with the top-heart notes of tagetes/Indian marigold, wormwood, chamomile, black tea absolute and other similar things. There is a gentle sweet quality in it from the start, albeit more prominent after 15 minutes – spicy, dry, sweet, tangy. It is medicinal too – especially due to its subdued green and herbaceous facets from wormwood, marigold, chamomile, black tea, elemi and the likes. It compliments quite beautifully to Dewaniya’s edible quality.

After 30 minutes, with the help of ouds, sweet florals, honey, beeswax and sweet resins, astringent tea-like smell becomes a smoky floral bouquet, where Cambodian and Bengali ouds play the most important roles. The Bengali oud, black tea, saffron and possibly turmeric combination presents a unique opening that somehow reminds me of chewing very spicy stem of betel leaf (Piper betel) and paan masala mix. It is somewhat dry, yet luscious with restraint sweetness, and is quite smoky and spicy.

Sultan Pasha’s use of bouyah oud here is quite restraint. He used Aetoxylon sympetalum variety - also known as white oud and crocodile oud. It adds a deep woody, and resinous smell with a hint of smoke, devoid of any of the nasty very pungent leathery facets that are so prevalent in the market.

Perfect time for a detour to rant about most oud perfumes in the market. Bouyah (also spelt as boya and bouyah) is heavily used in most western and eastern perfumeries, but we rarely hear this term - for a very ‘good’ marketing reason. It is very cheap. We typically hear ‘oud’ – be it as a note or as actual ingredient. So, let me be the guy who cries big bad wolf. They are not the same. Apart from Aetoxylon sympetalum, there is another type oud of that is also called boya oud. It is mainly created by distilling the white (aka bunk or non-oleorsniated) woods of agarwood. Additionaly, in the Subcontinent, the agarwood chips are regularly distilled second time – called second jaal (meaning ‘to boil’). First jaal is sold as a separate item, albeit more expensive. This second jaal stuff is cheap, extremely leathery and downright obnoxious - especially if the bunk wood proportion is very high to begin with. As of 2021, I heard from distillers that there is even third jaal! Some calls those 2nd and third jaal as boya too. All these aforementioned subcontinental boyas smell quite foul (pungent, leathery, linear, skanky and extremely tanecious). But they all have their uses in perfume compositions though. You explicityly need to ask how the boya or oud was produced. But the point is, without specificities, oud as we see in various offerings in the market, is not as noble, rare, expensive and glorious as the marketing contents make us believe!

Additionally, in most cases, oud oils are produced from the white (aka, bunk wood) with a small proprotion of the grey chips (barely resinated parts). These oils are not made from the fully infected dark parts, let alone anything close to Kyen - agarwood chips that have more oil contents than resin. Unless you have contacts with trustworthy private and artisan/small scale distilleries, you will end up with those oils that are quite leathery, extremely animalic (blue cheese, and scatological), and comparatively speaking, have very linear progressions. Another usefulness of bouya oud is unlike a properly distilled oud (wild, home grown, or cultivated), it is devoid of any non-linear progression – a very useful feature for large companies who want batch consistencies in their final products. So when you buy your top-mid range perfumes from Xerjoff, Dior, Fragrant du Bois, Fredrick Malle, Roja Dove and others, if you get that extremely leathery pungent smell, or something mostly linear progression within its 'oudy section', keep in mind that they are mostly using that obnoxious stuffs in varying degree (with various lab-produces oud molecules) without mentioning their specificities. Here endeth the rant!

Ouds and Resins

In my review of Tabac Grande, I mentioned that Bengali oud are probably the most difficult oud to play with in blends (whilst being unique and pleasant at the same time) as they can be slightly sweet, moderate to very animalic, resinous and leathery, pleasant to absolutely vile! So, in blends with such oud, other naturals, especially the heavier ones, can impart more leathery facets of different flavours and intensities. This amplification needs to be taken care of - especially with Bengali oud. Sultan Pasha did a superb job to highlight those in here in tune with this oud without clashing with each other or being overwhelmed by ouds. He takes Tabac Grande’s resinous quality, tones down its tobacco- and castoreum-inflected leather and adds a lot of ouds, and resins, and indolic white & yellow florals (some of which are fruity too).

The Cambodian oud here plays the supporting role in three ways. (1) It adds some ripe fruity, resinous facets. (2) It helps to modify the Bengal oud’s leather so that both types’ resinous and incensy qualities are extended. Considering how sweet, and leathery can osmanthus, immortelle, tonka, coffee, cocoa, and myrrh be, they complement each other quite beautifully here. (3) Cambodian’s typical incensy, resinous/balsamic and fruity facets aptly compliment the sweetness of honey, osmanthus, jasmine, benzoin, tonka, rose and other sweet things and make it a very unique and rare composition. Additionally, resins, namely frankincense, myrrh, labdanum, benzoin and possibly opoponax are the most important agents of Dewaniya’s resinous quality. They all contribute to its resinous oudiness and smouldering charm.

I get honey, beeswax, tonka, benzoin, hay – all of which add something ‘ambery’ – more specifically, sweet resinous facets (coumarin, vanillin, etc.). The first two also add some animalic facets – perhaps something urinous – with a leather undertone and lots of fruity and floral nuances. This last animalic facet is quite fleeting though as my bottle is almost 3 years old (from the very first batch).

In some instances, especially when it is colder, I get more of those smoky incenses and resins with lighter tea like facets before it gets smokier, florally resinous and gloriously oudy. So from the very beginning, this is a very non-linear dynamic perfume.

I initially also get saffron and honey/beeswax - even more so from the dipstick. The metallic, spicy, dry airy quality of saffron (read the top-heart notes of saffron maceration or of resinoid itself) is more prominent in colder weather - below 20°C on my skin. However, neither of them is discretely prominent on skin throughout. Later, both play an important role of adding various leather facets. Honey/beeswax’s tangy animalic sweetness plays a vital role – a frequently used material in many SPA compositions – for examples, Tabac Grande, L'Éphémère, Nuit Persane, Incense, (probably) Encens Chypre, etc.

A deep (rose-absolute-like) sweetness counterbalances the darker and indolic floral as soon as the top herbaceous notes subside. In some instances, especially when it is a bit warmer (22°C+), I get a touch of nagarmotha’s leather and smoke, which can have some similarities with vetiver and warm spices.

In the middle, Dewaniya is a trifecta of (1) sensual, spicy and fruity florals, (2) resinous and ambery incense, (3) with a gorgeous oudy backbone whilst leather is always humming away in the background.

Floral-, Leather- and Smoke-tinged Resinous Heart

After 2-3 hours (s. t., temperature), as the respective lighter molecules of ouds, sweet resins, florals, hay, beeswax and other sweet things dissipate, Dewaniya becomes smokier. It largely becomes so due to cade, cedar, myrrh, possibly cypriol, birch tar, vanilla, rose – all of which being tempered by Hindi and Cambodian ouds.

Unsurprisingly, Dewaniya is not shy in it's floral department either. I get a very wide spectrum of odour facets of jasmines in it –indolic, creamy sweetness, resinous, honey, and a bit fruity. In some instances, the overall sweet indolic smell is almost identical to that of bakula flower (Mimusops elengi). Bakula smells like a combination of Jasminum grandiflorum’s creamy sweetness, hawthorn’s indoles and Jasminum auriculatum’s ‘animalic’ honey quality. The sweetness also reminds me of anisaldehyde natural isolate.

The sweet, juicy and fruity osmanthus is quite clear from the top to deep heart of this composition. In the later stage, it imparts a refined and supple leather quality. Osmanthus, honey/beeswax, jasmine, Cambodian oud, vanilla, myrrh, and probably crude amber and styrax provides Dewaniya an ‘edible leather’ quality where saffron provides some dryness.

I get an intense burst of sweetness that is akin to rose absolute – albeit quite pronounced due to various 'ambers' used in it –a thick and gorgeous red Damascene rose absolute either from Turkey or Iran. It also adds a sharp but pleasant bite (i.e., rose absolute's top note). If I inhale deeper, I get a clearly distinguishable smell of honey (with freshly crushed green rose stems and leaves buried deep), and rose bud. When it is colder, it becomes an earthy and incensy rose. This sensuous and temperamental rose smell is clearly detectable for 3-4 hours. It then goes to the background and does its thing in tandem with others.

Smoke: Cade (that sharp thingy that hangs around in the background most of the time until the dry down stage) is quite dry. It adds some austerities without hampering this over-indulgence of nose exercise. Cedar wood has this ‘flinty’ facet which I get in it at earlier stages (with saffron’s dry spiciness). When burned for long time at low temperature, cedar wood chips can give off a very pleasantly sweet smoke of woodiness that has a gentle touch of sandalwood-type lactonic facet. I get those here as well.

There is a vanilla-inflected smoke to it as well, which reminds me of my recent experience with VAAN by Johanna Venables from NOT Perfumes. So, I speculate that it has guaiac wood, birch tar, nagarmotha, and crude amber (or some of the common molecules) too.

I noticed that coffee and cocoa powder extracts are used in Dewaniya. But I could not detect either. My guess is they add a bitter-sweet facet to this composition’s resinous heart. Cocoa extracts, if I remember correctly, can become slightly woody in the drydown, which would explain their uses in this East meets West composition.

Tobacco is sweet, sticky and resinous here. The leather facet from tobacco is more supple than in Tabac Grande. The coumarin and hay make it earthy but they take it more towards a sweet ambery territory. I can still detect saffron after 5 hours. It's spicy, astringent, bitter, dry and somewhat sweet facets lift the leather of this composition at higher plane than most top end 'amber' perfumes.

After 8 hours, the overall oudiness becomes very soft, yet quite detectable. The intensity of supple leather, sweet ‘amber’ (accord), balsams, and resins, and both ouds have now become a gentle oudy bakhoor like. I say bakhoor like because it still have a long tail of those smoky facets. For comparison, it is less leathery, a bit more sweeter and incensier and more resinous than TG now. Now the overall oud accord is a tangier than in TG in it’s manifestation – largely due to heavy use of oud, where honey, beeswax, ouds, osmanthus, jasmines, tagettes and marigold provide important facets.

At the tail-end, I get a gentle caress of the leather from the ouds, and castoreum, possibly warmed up by hyraceum, light but a very pleasant woody sandalwood, sweetened cedar and an overall sweet musky trace from Sultan’s own musk blend. I say his own accord because I found some similarities in the musks of Dewaniya, L’Heure D’or, Encens Chypre, Tabac Grande, L’Ephemere and others. It holds everything together. Dewaniya is one of the finest proponents of Hindi oud in modern perfumery – more specifically it adds, compliments, suppliments and deducts various odour facets - all to highlight the sweet, resinous and incensy facets of Bengali oud quite optimally. In our current weather, it rewards me with at least 10-12 hours of olfactive over-indulgence before becoming a skin scent. In winter, it is over 16 hours! Nabil, a close friend, and a far more experienced nose, calls it a royal fragrance. I sincerely agree!