Opening on a rich, smoky stew of incense over the crackle of dried tobacco leaf, Mecca Balsam sends the senses reeling, as if you’d suddenly stepped into the scent trail of a thousand pilgrims holding burning censers aloft as they circle the Black Stone in Mecca. Despite the tarry heft of the sticky balsams and resins, there is an airy sweetness to the underlying structure – a sort of smoked-out incense fairy dust – that elevates the scent and keeps it airborne.
A common complaint leveled at incense scents is that they feel cold or severe, but there’s no danger of that here. Dubrana has balanced the ancient salve-like feel of the incense with a musky, saline labdanum that reads like warm skin, in one stroke banishing any thought of High Church and drawing our mind instead to what he originally intended Mecca Balsam to reflect: the seething mass of human souls gathered around the Kaaba to perform the Hajj. Mecca Balsam is both sacred and divine, therefore, pitching the throat-catching aridity of incense against the warm, sweet embrace of flowers and amber. Unusual in that it simultaneously purifies and comforts, Mecca Balsam feels less like perfume than it does a statement of faith.
Mecca Balsam Fragrance Notes
Indian tuberose, tobacco, rose, benzoin, agarwood, incense, labdanum, tonka bean
