The fragrant secret of the Orient: what is shamama, an indescribable perfume note, and in what spirit should it be sought

We have already said how Oriental women keep the panache and the smell of perfume around them. The secret, among other things, is that they use attars (also called otr or itr) – a specially concentrated fragrance made from natural ingredients on an oil base. Men also use attars.

The tradition of their manufacture is rooted in the depths of centuries. These perfumes are made from a variety of raw materials, using fragrant wood, flowers, herbs and their mixtures. Good attars are expensive, but are not considered luxury items that only the wealthy should use. In the countries of the Middle East and Asia, even the poor regard personal perfume as an essential item and rake in the money to buy small bottles of attars from merchants, they are called dari.

The attar called shamama (not to be confused with the shamama variety of melon!) stands out in a range of flavors prepared and sold as dari. It is believed to have been first made in ancient India. And today India remains the capital of the Attars: the northern state of Uttar Pradesh is a kind of analogue of French Grasse.

Shamama is cooked here according to the original recipe, the main secret of which is that there is no clear recipe. Specifically, each batch of this attar is unique. There is a basic set of raw materials that are used to create a perfume. It includes henna, saffron, oud and components that give the so-called “amber” or amber accord (it is not the same as the gray whale’s ambergris accord), of which benzoin, cistus and vanilla. But since we are talking about natural substances, often the result of their mixing is unpredictable, and some manufacturers, in addition, adjust the proportions to create their own branded attar.

Nevertheless, the shamama of any “harvest” cannot be confused with anything – it is the epitome of oriental fragrances. The note is said to be mysterious, elusive, mysterious; it smells of bazaar, desert, rose garden, sea, resin… The bouquet is very complex and, as they say, expensive – it is no coincidence that the main buyers of pure shamama are the United Arab Emirates United, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.

However, more and more often this unusual component appears in the perfumes available on our market. Here are some examples:

In this perfume from the Italian perfume house, the chamama accord joins us in top notes, setting the tone for a woody-floral composition based on rose, violet, cedar and oud. This sophisticated fragrance is part of a collection dedicated to alchemy.

Oriental chypre – this is how perfume critics defined the genre of the new creation of the household perfume brand. Here, the shamama note “sits” in the middle, making the rose, the main character, as dramatic and compelling as possible.

The Jordanian beauty brand with Russian roots continues to open the traditions of the Orient to European audiences. This is a perfume in the authentic form of pure attar shamam and the original bottle with a stick that allows you to apply the perfume on the skin.

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