L'Artisan Parfumeur - Timbuktu

Some perfumes smells good and other smells interesting. Some perfumes set my imagination free and makes it wander away on adventures to places far far away or places that only exist in my imagination. Others yet, manage to wake the geographis-and travel nerd in me, just by the name of the perfume.

L'Artisan´s Timbuktu manage to make full score on each above mentioned area. Timbuktu smells good, really good. There is something fresh and breezing in it, but also a caressing and calming smell. At the same time it´s filled with deep mystique and unknown almost forgotten rituals. Timbuktu manage to give me an almost meditative ease, but without making me lose my focus or sharpness.

The name Timbuktu has an obvious place on the list of exotic cities or places like Samarkand, Valparaiso or Darjeeling that several hundreds or thousands of year after it´s days of glory still manage to raise the desire to travel, curiosity and homage, at least with me. The glory of Timbuktu is long time gone, I´ve heard that it nowadays is a dusty, hot desert town in Mali.

Well, the perfume Timbuktu manage to take me on an olfactory trip to a Timbuktu that still has a lot to offer. I guess it´s the note of pink pepper that gives the fragrance it´s aromatic and a little chilly freshness that makes me think of a balmy house with thick clay walls, while the sun shines merciless outside. The note of papyrus is very beautiful a bit dry, like handmade paper hanged to dry above smoke from holy incense and secret african herbs. Timbuktu fool me to belive that I attend in some ancient ritaul that has been passed on from mother to daughter for hundreds of years. I can almost hear their soft, unfamiliar african voices... Oooh, please take me to Timbuktu immediately!

A lot of orientalic perfumes are varm, sweet and quite noisy creations that I use to be quite found of. Timbuktu is an orientalic perfume, but somehow it has become so orientalic that it manage to come out totally different. It is soft, whispering, secret and subtle. It is as far away possible from dance perfomences arranged for tourists. Here isn´t any bright coloured drinks, harassing beach sellers or crowded bazaars as far as the eye can se, or the nose can smell. No, Timbuktu stays in the shadow, and that makes it unique.

I´ve got my favourites among L'Artisans fragrances and Timbuktu is one of them. Each time I put on Timbuktu I feel I need more of it. In differ to other perfumes from L'Artisan that I also like, Timbuktu has a good longvity and quite a powerful sillage. This far only Dzing! has more of that, among the L'Artisan´s I´ve tried.

Some say that Timbuktu is a fragrance for men, I couldn´t care less, I find it to be suitable for mens as well as females. Timbuktu may be a bit hard to learn to know, especially if you try it just after having some loud fragrance on, once again it stand´s a bit shy in the shadow. But Timbuktu is a winner after a while, it is so different from anything else, it must have a place in every perfume collection. Timbuktu is probably a really good summer perfume, but I think it is very nice to wear even during the colder season.