Seasonal scentiments

Be it for an evening out with friends or a romantic date, winter demands different fragrances through the season, writes Krishnaraj Iyengar

The chill really gets to your spine on the breathtaking chairlift up the snowy slopes of Australia’s Mount Buller. But reminiscent of the warmth of grandpa’s quilt that enveloped me during school, Christmas holidays was a scent from the motherland.

A few dabs of it on the neck’s pulse points surpassed the dense layers of thermals I was wrapped in. It was spiritual.

Warm, woody, spicy, herbaceous, Attar Hina resurrected bygone eras of India’s eccentric geniuses like Mirza Ghalib who is said to have massaged the scent on his flowing white beard during the freezing winters of Delhi. The attar, expert perfumers explain, consists of several spices and herbs like cardamom, cinnamon, clove, black pepper and nagarmotha (Cyperus rotundus) to name a few, distilled over a pure, Mysuru sandalwood base.

Historic musings

Every traditional perfumer boasts of his secret formula for Hina and even for the legendary Attar Shamama, an age-old winter scent sharing similar accords with the former and highly exoticised over eons. A favourite of the nawabs of old, the natural Indian attar continues to charm the spirit in the 21st century of synthetic concoctions.

It is believed that notoriously indulgent nawabs were extremely feeble. They smeared layers of Attar Hina between the cotton layers of a lighter razaai (comforter or quilt) to provide them with the warmth of a heavier one that they were too weak to cover with during winters.

The art of distilling natural materials to extract fragrance oils began in India during the Indus Valley Civilisation, the ones with an inherently cooling or warming effect being a part of the world’s oldest repertoire of seasonal scents. Its only recently that western perfumery has awakened to ‘summer’ and ‘winter’ lines storming the global markets.

Authentic Yemeni Myrrh on charcoal is a Biblical legacy. PHOTOS BY AUTHOR

Brilliantly bespoke

A nip in the air, an evening out with loved ones, a romantic Christmas date surely calls for more than just traditional scents to create cosy warmth and gaiety. Western perfumery offers a wide range of warm, woody, spicy notes with ingredients like amber, labdanum, musk and oud to create the perfect winter mood.

At Delhi’s Gulab Singh Johrimal heritage perfumery, I chose to try my nose at my own bespoke selection of aha notes — oud, leather and tobacco.

Eighth generation perfumer Kushal Gundhi cooked up the perfect blend, a brilliant symphony of aged Indian oud oil, rugged leather and tobacco embellished with white musk, pink pepper and tonka beans. Smoky, musky, Arabesque with the sophistication of French perfumery, Oud Leather Tobacco became my perfect winter ‘scentiment’.

Incense a la winter

While perfume dazzles you with olfactory seduction, incense casts a spell on your space with ethereal aromas permeating the air. Myrrh is one of the most ancient incenses and the resin has been an invaluable Biblical treasure. Derived from the barks of a tree species native to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, myrrh’s unique spicy, warm, woody, resinous, musky aromas are both warming and healing.

“Burning myrrh on charcoal or on an electric burner transports you into a world of enchanting aroma experience on a different level altogether. Its stunningly exotic deep, woody, earthy scent warms the space and the mind, bringing about inner calm,” explains Oman-based Jefri Jamil of J’s Frankincense and Myrrh.

Oud oil

Sound oudwise

The most sought after perfumery material in the world is oud or agar. One of nature’s most benevolent gifts, it is an extract of the Aquilaria trees native to Assam and other south Asian forests. Warm, animalic, leathery, green, the complex aromas of oud bear an inexplicable mesmerism.

“Oud is not about fragrance, it’s about feeling,” smiles Tajul Bakshi, an oud distiller. The magic about oud oil extract Dehn Al Oud in Arabic, he explains, is that it changes according to the climate and atmosphere. “When you smell oud oil in Assam and in Dubai, it’s going to be a different experience, just like when you use it in summer and during winters,” he says.

The warmth of Dehn Al Oud and its underlying animalicity makes it the world’s oldest aphrodisiac, inspiring feelings of intimacy and making passions rise when temperatures drop.