SHAMAMA - Premium Indian attar made the traditional way

Shamama attar is one of the quintessential traditional Indian attars. Anyone who spend long enough time in India is bound to recognize its unique scent profile

Well, it's unique scent profile family, more precisely, as it is a very complex attar and each traditional maker keeps their recipe a complete... family, secret transmitted down generations.

Unsurprisingly and sadly, today the craft is vanishing, so complex, time and work consuming a process it represents.  Thus, most "shamama" attars are nowadays synthetic based.

It took me a long time to find a traditional maker's recipe that I could see selling here, and that would be interesting for the audience who are supporting and enjoying our work. Many recipes are very loud, and can be, for Western audiences, a bit "écoeurant" as we say in French : a bit too much, too heavy, slightly nauseating and overpowering.

To the contrary, this shamama attar is very fragrant and delicately balanced, while remaining complex and layered. 

I am happy after years of searching to have found the "perfect" iteration (for this website, that is) that works as a lovely stand alone perfume: warm, spicy, deep, and sensual.

It is has a strong aura as well good projection (for a pure attar) and longevity.

The precise ingredients are kept secret, as per tradition. They are made from roots, rhizomes, mosses, barks, spices, seeds, florals, resins (...) some of which are very precious, others more common, some are plants that one finds only regionally, others are stars of perfumery. 

The raw ingredients are slightly processed (eg : lightly crushing seeds, sun drying rhizomes etc), before being distilled directly into sandalwood oil, which acts as a natural fixative and base from the onset of the process.

The distillation process is sequential, made of multiple hydro distillation rounds of the raw ingredients over several weeks. The complexity is built one step at a time through a fascinating process of layering, until the desired result is achieved. All is done manually, as per family tradition.

This in an oil that ages well, when cured under proper conditions (see our hearnotes blog entry on curing oils and attars here) 

In India, Shamama is traditionally considered a "warming" perfume particularly fit for the colder months. But I do honestly enjoy wearing it in summers as well.

This attar is intersting for perfume lovers, collectors of rare oils, particularly those building comprehensive South Asian collection, lovers of India, and aficionados / students of the rich cultural histories of perfumery hidden behind today's mass markets.

It is sold as an olfactory material for scent enjoyment and evaluation (smelling from the applicator, on scent strips or on cloth). All other uses are are made solely under your own and entire responsibility.