Symbolism in olfactory art, Anurāga (अनुराग), a sanskrit word for boundless and fervent passion with intensity and depth. A transcendental love that is “out of this world”, a scent of complex amalgamation, an ethereal flower bearing fruit. Anurāga – the newest and one of my proudest creations, a scent to commemorate the matrimony of a close friend and an important partner to Kangiiten. The concept of Anurāga is built on blossoming flowers that bear fruit, but the added difficulty is to create a mythical or mysterious flower, an ethereal bloom that does not exist on earth, but only in my imagination. I have smelt many hundreds of types of real flowers, from the angel’s trumpet to the rare queen of the night, from the tinest tropical endangered orchids, to the giant pungent efflorescence in the forests of borneo. So in some way I had envisioned a flower that is “out of this world”, perhaps only existing in a certain form of pureland in another dimension, scintillating in multiple colours, and its scent extremely full bodied, heady, a full bosomed scent of flawless transition, compounded from a myriad of premium and exotic ingredients in careful proportions just to ensure there are no edges. The aim is not for users to dissect a dish, that we don’t taste a curry and describe it as mustard, cloves, cumin, tumeric, onions etc, but in its entirety as a yellow curry in perfect harmonious balance. So in some way, when you smell Anurāga, its not about dissecting the scent, but embracing it as one mythical blossom that blooms intensely with great longevity. Anurāga is more than a perfume; it is an intimate invocation of passion’s most sacred promise — that in the surrender to love, we find ourselves both lost and infinitely found. Underlying the seamless florals is a platter of freshly peeled tropical fruits and ripe fruits, the type of fruitiness that comes from a barnyardy oud that has mellowed and lost the pungency, leather, fruits, muskiness. Topped with dollop of vanillic butter cream, lipstick rogue and a cool milky mysore sandalwood woody dry down with rounded edges. Binding everything together is a lactonic Pacific Ambergris and KZ’s aged Siberian Musk juice. If the KZ’s al-ghaliyah from years ago was iconic, and if the Fatima Blend was iconic, Anurāga belongs to the same genre/category of artistic expression. 9 months of iteration and at least one third of the ingredients in this sophisticated formulation was distilled and extracted by KZ personally. This Eau de Parfum of 30% concentration is ultra heavy on natural content, with some highly curated synthetics for sustainability reasons. As some of the ouds, misk and ambergris ingredients are unique, this production will be one-off, I won’t say limited edition but it will be hard to re-create or reproduce the exact batch. Comes in a 10 grams bottle.
