ShenZhou

ShenZhou roughly translates to divine land, but the term is more encompassing than can be expressed in the English language.

While Huaxia was based on an intensely indolic animalic jasmine core, ShenZhou’s core is based mainly on the spicy citrus floral oud combo.

The composition starts with an exotic spicy citrus accord built around yuzu and orange, then the narcotic florals start coming off with the oud in the center.

The oud is drenched with exotic florals like Chinese gardenia enfleurage and Chinese gardenia absolute, tuberose extracts, Chinese osmanthus, and Zhi Zhi fruit extracts , as well as Chinese green tea, Chinese jasmine sambac, with an added surreal bamboo accord, made naturally from cucumber aldehydes and various white florals.

The whole composition sits on a bed of tonka bean and a touch of vanilla and hibiscus extracts.

We were planning to use Hainan CO2 wild oil exclusively at first but the result was much better when we experimented with one of our Malaysian ouds, which is less spicy than Chinese ouds and more animalic which works better with the white florals and sweetness from the tonka and vanilla.

30% of this composition is Malaysian Agarwood oil, so, expect a heavy heart and drydown full of oud, a small amount of Hainan CO2 was added to complement the spicy accord and help with the floral/ oud transition in the composition.

One of Elixir Attar Perfumers’ favorite self worn perfumes this year.” —Elixir Attar