Best Chapter 5 by Ajmal Alternatives & Similar Perfumes

Here we consider the relationship between the sea and the art it has inspired.

Crabtree uses his grandfather's pen drawings of luxury yachts, his father's library of nautical fiction and his own tattoos as references. Accord of black ink dominate here; west Indian spiced rum; papers lost and found; the familiar dry accords of leather bound books balanced with warm enigmatic notes of vanilla pipe tobacco. All finely based around a dark heart of birch tar and labdanum.

As featured in Elle Magazine: Masculine Notes: A New Fragrance Trend

Perfumer: Luca Maffei

It's a perfume built around natural oud and it meticulously highlights most nuances oud might posess: dry driftwood, then a mushroomy damp stump aroma, smoky charred logs and suddenly soft honeyed amber and green leaves.

Oud accords are often made safer and sweeter in a lot of perfumes. However, natural oud oil would only be distilled from a certain type of tree developing a fungal infection and responding to it in its own chemical way. Hence real oud oil smells both like old damp wood and at the same time like some clean smelling medicinal substance and lots of aromatic shades in between.

Oud Imperial explores this dichotomy of earthy vs. sunny, ancient vs. fresh, decay vs. renewal and so on.

Also available as an extrait. The EdP option smells drier and more like a damp autumn forest (and has a peculiar mushroom effect). The extrait of Oud Imperial is more ambery (softer) and the smokiness of natural oud is much more pronounced.

Perris are rebalancing each composition for the extrait version. They shift the focus from the top notes to the base raising the amounts of base ingredients to achieve a richer, more opulent and luxurious effect. Pure indulgence in the theme.

Perfumer: Luca Maffei

The EdP option smells drier and more like a damp autumn forest (and has a peculiar mushroom effect). The extrait of Oud Imperial is more ambery (softer) and the smokiness of natural oud is much more pronounced.

Perris are rebalancing each composition for the extrait version. They shift the focus from the top notes to the base raising the amounts of base ingredients to achieve a richer, more opulent and luxurious effect. Pure indulgence in the theme.

Formerly known as East India the perfume is back with the new name: Vi et Armis (Latin for 'by force and arms',  the motto of the East India company)

The olfactory references in the perfume are exploring Britain’s complex relationship with other nations and its dominance of international sea trade across the centuries, this heady, narcotic scent challenges as much as it beguiles.

Using imported and exported goods of the East India Company as its key notes, this addictive fragrance recalls the words of George Bernard Shaw: “Emotional excitement reaches men through Tea, Tobacco, Opium, Whisky and religion”

Paradoxical and challenging, we imagine the roots of our island nation steeped in contradictions.

Calligraphy is China’s living art—each stroke a meditation in ink and paper. The scent evokes the stillness of a scholar’s studio, where technique meets introspection. This quiet ink, paper and coffee fragrance is an homage to the brushstrokes that shaped a civilization.

Comme des Garcons 2 is a landmark perfume in the CdG range, and a revered cult classic. Built around invisible incense, the suggestion of ink, and the gentle euphoria of tea, CdG2 is bright and clear, but with an unexpected tenderness. Incredibly diffusive, this EdP retains its structure and presence while also hanging in the air with a barely-there shimmer.

The drowned monk’s body is bloated, its fat turned to soap in his watery grave. His crime was revealing the apothecary secrets of his order, in a scroll inscribed with the antidotes to poisonings.

This is privileged information that keeps the power with the friary, and he betrayed his vows.

Farmakon is the smell of his sad story: the odor of parchment, ink — and the wax from the flesh of a drowned man.

The ancient art of tattooing is more than just body decoration; it’s a reminder of a time or a place — a fleeting moment that becomes a permanent mark. Like a tattoo, perfume is a mark left behind, but its evanescence requires less commitment…which is a good excuse to try this beautifully weird perfume. Ink harnesses vetiver, jasmine, birch tar — and ink — to suggest needle-in-skin body art. It’s the smell of office party sex on the Xerox machine, the kiss of a box-fresh blow-up doll.

Tonnerre, originally called 1805 - the year in which Nelson both won the Battle of Trafalgar and lost his life: The year in which Sir Francis Beaufort introduced his ‘wind force scale’.

The scent imagines moments within the battle itself.  Powerful accords of smoke, gunpowder, blood and brandy combine with sea spray and a penetrating citrus note. The fragrance is singularly bold in its composition, yet ultimately refined, provocative and unique.

Inspired by the majestic Helix Nebula, known as the “Eye of God,” this extrait captures the mystical balance between infinity and the now. Radiant spice notes open the experience, followed by a complex heart of smoky buddhawood, charred birch tar, earthy moss and leathery oud. The chorus of woods is unexpectedly tenderised with cotton candy and vanilla. A metallic coolness adds an almost otherworldly aura to the composition. A fragrance for those who seek to be present in the deepest aspects of their lives.