Launched in 2008 as part of his exclusive Palais Royal line, El Attarine takes its name from the Medersa El Attarine, a 14th-century college for Islamic studies in Fez, Morocco. Located in the Old Medina near Fez’s historic spice and perfume market, its name is often translated as “the school of the perfumers,” a name that opens directly onto the fragrance’s imagined world of scent, sun, memory, and Morocco.

On me, El Attarine opens with orange blossom: rich, honeyed, and heady, but lifted by a bright citrus sparkle. Violet leaf cuts through the lushness with its citrus metallic-green freshness, sharpening the orange blossom and creating a striking solar effect. As the violet leaf recedes, a note of honey comes forward. Initially light and fluid, it grows heavier, stickier, and more syrupy, eventually becoming the core of the fragrance. It links to a note of driedapricot, thick and jammy, whose stewed stone-fruit sweetness binds to the honey and gives El Attarine a golden amber-like warmth. Beneath the jammy sweetness lies a quiet floral blend of opulent, velvety rose and rich, narcotic jasmine, adding softness, depth, and sensuality. The composition shifts gears when cumin appears. It’s pungent, anisic, and earthy, tempering the sweetness with warm spice and giving the fragrance a dirty, carnal, skin-like feel that a note of musk softens beautifully. Saffron extends that warmth with a dry, spicy, subtly sweet leatheriness, like a golden shaft of light running through the bright opening, with heavier mid notes into the spicier base, bringing a feeling of light and air to the composition. Immortelle follows echoing the honeyed stone-fruit jamminess with its deep, resinous maple-syrup and anise aroma. Atlas cedarwood, native to Morocco, anchors the syrupy elements with its warm, honeyed, rich, woody aroma while creamy, rich sandalwood smooths out any sharpness or bitterness,

El Attarine dries down to a golden, sophisticated, quietly sensual skin scent.

What I love about El Attarine is that it’s a solar scent that isn’t a beach scent. Instead, it’s an olfactory love letter to the Morocco that he loves: sun-drenched, textured and aromatic.

Notes: Orange blossom, violet leaf, honey, dried apricot, rose, jasmine, cumin, musk, saffron, immortelle, Atlas cedarwood, and sandalwood.