Shamama Attar

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Shamama is a finished attar, not a single material: 40 or more herbs, spices, resins and dried flowers hydro-distilled into sandalwood oil at Kannauj. It reads as a spice market first, then resin and dried flower, then the creamy sandalwood it was distilled into. Both sources reach for the same word for the whole thing, warm.

Scent Profile

Warm_spice leads and it is the one thing both sources say without qualification: 'rich, warm, and earthy', and 'smells like an entire spice market concentrated into a single warm, dark, impossibly layered drop'. Amber_resinous is the 'resinous balsam' and the 'resinous-balsamic' that Premiere Peau names twice as the second half of the note's overall character. Creamy_woody is the sandalwood the whole thing is distilled into, which Attar Kannauj states as the base and Premiere Peau calls 'the creamy foundation that holds everything together'. Aromatic_herbal covers the 'medicinal herbs' and the 'herbal-medicinal' phase, and Attar Kannauj independently opens with 'blending several herbs'. Floral is the 'dried flowers' and the rose and jasmine named as ingredients, dried rather than fresh, which is why it sits below the herbal facet. Earthy comes from Attar Kannauj's 'rich, warm, and earthy aroma' and is held here rather than higher because only one of the two sources names it and Premiere Peau does not lead with it. Smoky is the 'smoky qualities emerging in succession over hours of wear'. Dry_woody is the agarwood named in the ingredient list, sitting under the sandalwood. Fruity is the 'dried fruit' Premiere Peau places in the middle phase. Under the line: animalic for the musk both sources name, once as an ingredient and once as part of the final drydown, and small values for fresh_spice, mineral, sweet_vanillic, tobacco_hay and leather, where leather is a cautious trace for the named saffron rather than anything a source calls leathery.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~24h lasting

Family Spicy, Amber · Musk · Leather, Woody & Earthy, Green & Aromatic, Floral

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Made at Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh by the deg-bhapka method, hydro-distilling a large blend of botanicals into a receiver of sandalwood oil. Attar Kannauj names sandalwood, musk, saffron, rose, jasmine and agarwood among the ingredients and says the base is pure sandalwood oil. Premiere Peau counts over 40 ingredients and calls it India's most complex attar. Recipes are held orally inside individual distiller families, so no two houses make the same shamama.

Usage in Perfumery

Attested on 9 Fragrantica entries and nothing on Parfumo. Fragrantica files it under 'Natural and synthetic, popular and weird'. In practice it is worn neat as an attar and used as a base in Indian and Middle Eastern perfumery, where it brings a whole spice-and-resin accord in one material.