Shamama

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Shamama is one of the great traditional Indian attars: warm, spicy, herbal, woody, resinous, and long-lasting. It may be worn directly as a perfume oil, but it is also widely used as a compounding base in mukhallat, bakhoor, incense, tobacco, and oriental-style perfume blends. Shamama opens with a warm spice-smoke accord — clove, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg over roasted cypriol, spikenard and valerian roots. The sandalwood base sits underneath, threaded with charila lichen and choya smoke. A faint floral lift from rose, jasmine and saffron lights up the heart. Use Shamama as the anchor of orientals, mukhallats and bakhoor compositions where you want dense Indian complexity in one material. A few drops bind disparate notes into a unified whole, scaffolding rose, oud, ambergris and saffron. In tobacco and incense bases it adds heating animalic depth lighter florals cannot reach. This Shamama is from M.L. Ramnarain Perfumers, one of the oldest continuously operating distilleries in Kannauj. The Kapoor family has been distilling for five generations using the traditional deg-bhapka method. Their Shamama is widely considered among the finest examples of the form. For more information on how Shamama are made, read our article Oils and Attars of Indian and Oriental Perfumery. Show more