Kenya

The triumph of dried flora

Kenya is a niche fragrance that conveys the feeling of being immersed in exotic nature.

A hot summer day captured in a bottle. Midsummer, grasses warmed by the sun, and almost motionless air filled with a spicy scent. Dust, hot air, sparse half-dry greenery, bitterness in the air and a complete absence of sweetness. A scent-landscape that unfolds a journey across sun-scorched steppe or savannah.

"The quiet rustling of the wind and the heat sank the soul into oblivion: slowly the thoughts were flowing, slowly changing one another, the pictures of ancient times passed in memory - ancient peoples, tribes, individual people walked long... As if from the past, from the past, a huge river of changing every second of events, persons and clothes. "Such images give rise to fragrance, and they come from the pages of the "Andromeda Nebula" by Ivan Efremov.

An amazing picture opens up: colours come alive, flowing into one another and blending, giving the strange sensation that your nose has caught a breath of steppe wind — dry, tart, carrying the smell of freedom from far away.

The scent is not so much “woody” as “shrubby”: the smell of drying thickets under a bright summer sun, with thorny twigs and rare green leaves. The warmth of heated, cracking twigs is joined by a distinct smell of earth and a hint of dust. There are many resinous woody notes, but the resinousness is delicate: it does not smother you with dense bitterness or heavy incense. The notes are calm and cheerful and claim nothing — no death of all living things, no anguish, drama or pathos.

The herbs that give the fragrance its shape grew without outside help or human care, and only the hardiest survived, tempered in a tireless struggle with wind and heat, cold and rain. They only raised their stems higher and reached for the sun, which warms the strong and the weak alike.

The fragrance sings a hymn to an unbroken, steadfast spirit. The wild herbs have gathered strength and give off a honeyed bitterness and a dry, spicy astringency, heightened by a play of flowers. The dense, lingering scent, scratched by green galbanum, fades away, leaving a boozy aftertaste with languid amber. Very handsome and aristocratic, despite its wild steppe dances.

Top notes:

cinnamon, cloves

Heart notes:

cumin, jasmine, incense, geranium, honey, nutmeg, galbanum

Base notes:

guaiac wood, vetiver, sandalwood, mahogany, styrax, amber, oakmoss

photo: Marnus Meyer Photography >

model: Lushwill Rossouw >

Private collection — niche fragrances made from rare and expensive ingredients. Steeping and maturing the composition takes a long time and close attention. Natural ingredients behave unpredictably in a niche fragrance: each of them consists of thousands of kinds of molecules.

From reviews — candid thoughts:

Anastasia:

Good afternoon, Sergey! Received a package-thank you, I will experience the contents! :) Kenya-intoxicating, in a good sense of fragrance.

Posted by Telegram in @hab_tales:

The name refers to Africa, but the structure itself is very European. I want to characterize the start as a spicy fougère, with development towards the European east. Let there be enough cinnamon and cloves with nutmeg, but geranium, galbanum and woody notes, coupled with recognizable male musk, create a very nice rethinking of male classics. Aromatic and woody-spicy for most of its wear. I really liked its fragrance. Soft woody notes (I hear more sandalwood than vetiver), some honey with spices, an excellent balance of sweetness and spiciness. This is exactly the classic European style of men's perfumes. Only heard modern components, more rounded and thin. Therefore, this is not real Kenya for me, but a story about it, somewhere in Europe, as an exotic journey, at a safe distance. Souvenirs and photos, no more))

The only thing I can complain about is the projection. I would like a little louder. And longevity is no problem, more than 12 hours. I was won over by its softness and delicacy. Excellent adaptation of classic male patterns.