Ambre Sultan

Serge Lutens discovered Morocco in 1968. Wandering through the souks of Marrakech, he bought a piece of amber wax on impulse, put it away in a thuja-wood box and forgot about it for years.

A rediscovered wax

The house dates to 1993 the moment he found it again and Ambre Sultan was born, composed with Christopher Sheldrake. It sees in it a return to the authenticity of raw materials; its creator says this amber only became a sultan once he had reworked it with cistus and vanilla.

Arab rather than Oriental

Serge Lutens rejects the Oriental label for it: to him, Ambre Sultan is an Arab perfume, and a Lutens, not one to expect to fall into line. He also says that with Ambre Sultan he sought to “get away from the Adam and Eve of marketing.”

From the Palais-Royal to the Collection noire

Emmanuelle Varron, who bought it in 1993 at the Salons du Palais-Royal, remembers a boutique steeped in shadow, where the perfumes waited in bell-shaped bottles. In 2000, Ambre Sultan joined the export range of the Serge Lutens brand, launched that year within Shiseido.

Kevin, of Now Smell This, recalls having to order it from England in early 2000, since none could be found in the United States; some reviews even date its creation to 2000. Today the house ranks it among the resinous ambers of its Collection noire, with no distinction of gender.