Gypsy Rose Attar

Adam Michael has this to say “Gypsy Rose Attar is the result of co-distilling many super star Indian florals, Wild khus, Petrichor and Karnataka patchouli leaves into some of the most buttery Mysore sandalwood on Earth today.

This is a top level luxury aromatic from one of India’s rockstar artisans and something for the fellow hardcore aromatic fan-boys here to truly geek out on. Flowers distilled include kewra (pandanus), Bourbon rose, rose damascena, rose centifolia, jasmine sambac, jasmine grandiflorum, marigold, blue lotus, pink lotus, white lotus, champaca red and kadamba flowers. And the Mysore sandalwood used was produced in 2019 – so 6 years aged as I write on 16.04.25.

The top opens with fridge-fresh, mouth-watering, coca-cola and dry bitter chinotto tonalities, these notes run throughout the core of this profile and I find they influence every other note that comes out to play. So much so that I can not help but compare this aromatic with that of Thai oud.

Hear me out please. You can take just about any Thai oud on the market today and you will find it has been DNA stamped with an easy to recognise fruity melody right. Well imagine swapping out that exotic fruit theme for a mind-bending exotically charged floral bouquet. If you can wrap your head around that, then the outcome in my opinion is Gypsy Rose Attar. In fact for me, in many ways, my brain registers this as more of an Oriental floral-incense oud than that of just another turbo charged pretty floral attar.

At the same time if I really tune in here, I get the oasis of rose notes galore, from powdery rose, vintage almost talcum powder rose, soapy rose, sweet rose, pretty rose effects, dry rose effects, fresh, wilted, sincerely, the life of a rose can be found here. The patchouli here is insanely good, like productions of the good old days, when India was the king of patchouli, a time before Indonesia came along and went onto dominate and essentially McDonald-ise what people know patchouli to smell like today. The jasmine notes here are as you would expect, and with the sambac, heady, white floral bright, yes, but void of the orange note (as is the case with Indian sambac) and never really popping out as a standalone note for me, instead acting more as a heady-amplifier of all the other florals. The incense notes here are off the charts gorgeous and are also in many ways, the very bones of this scent profile, the way they play with the roses and the Crayola effects of the lotus flowers, and in particular the juicy Coca-Cola-cherry qualities of the blue lotus flowers is pure heaven.

Marigolds, musty-zing is here, the champaca and kadamba flowers – of which share similarities inject the whole story with an air of sophistication and elegance, the brightness of the kewra, the distinct artichoke note from the bourbon rose, the sweetness of the centifolia roses, as I say, this is an aromatic geeks wet dream. And we haven’t even touched on the soul-calming Mysore sandalwood.

What can I say! With exception to Sandalwood India Gold V.2 which I realise was below-par by my standards, I have been picking out artisan sandalwood winners since 2019 now, one after the other without fail, and here we have another epic creamy vintage sandalwood, smooth as butter, creamy woody as it gets, pitter-pattering into a soft woody floral territory, and finished with a touch of animalic prowess, that endows this sandalwood with never ending power.

This was a true joy to evaluate, it is a real honour having this artisans work grace our collection and one more time, if you like aromatics you can deep dive inside, then this is well worth checking out. 2 weeks on the strip, 11 hours on my skin type, 7 of which in optimal form, dark yellow to coca-cola brown in colour subject to volume/weight. Uses, a monster base note, useful for building or improving both oud and vintage rose bases, a must for old-school barbershop through to Oriental accords. Pairs great with most base notes – patchouli, ambers, ouds, sandalwoods, guaiac wood and so on, and also works in harmony with citrus flower and leaf aromatics, layers great with deer musk and particularly layers great with our Gallica rose otto. The uses for Gypsy Rose Attar are vast and the limitation here is arguably only ones imagination. 10 out of 10 and highly recommended.”

Botanical Name: 

Origin: India

Oil Soluble: Yes 

Alcohol Soluble: Yes 

Wholesale weights (all prices excluding vat): 50G = 700 Euros. 100G = 1200 Euros.