Ambre Sultan was born in 1993 at Serge Lutens, from a piece of amber wax bought in the souks of Marrakech and forgotten for years in a thuja-wood box. Christopher Sheldrake composed the formula: dry herbs, coriander, oregano, laurel and myrtle, over an amber of cistus, benzoin and vanilla, backed by patchouli and sandalwood. The house places it in its Collection noire.
The house sums up Ambre Sultan as an amber eau de parfum with notes of vanilla and patchouli, and Serge Lutens credits its character to cistus and vanilla. It publishes no breakdown by tiers; the reviewers, for their part, describe an opening of herbs, a middle of amber and a woody, vanilla base.
Top
Reviewers agree on an opening of dry herbs: coriander, oregano, laurel and myrtle. Elena Vosnaki (Perfume Shrine) smells mostly the laurel and myrtle, like herbs warming in the sun on rocky ground; Victoria Frolova (Bois de Jasmin) likens their brightness to salt sprinkled over chocolate.
Heart
Amber holds the middle of the composition. An earlier house presentation described it as a classic amber, powdery and vanilla-tinged, made of Siam benzoin, styrax and Tolu balsam, blended with cistus labdanum; Elena Vosnaki sees these resins rounding out the whole.
Base
In the same presentation, angelica root, sandalwood and patchouli leaf soften everything. Kevin (Now Smell This) finds a more classic amber at the end of the development: a vanilla that is not too sweet, a discreet musk, sandalwood, benzoin, which leans toward incense, and a patchouli with no cocoa note.
What stays out
Cinnamon and cumin, sometimes associated with Ambre Sultan, appear neither in the house’s descriptions nor with the reviewers cited. Styrax, named in the earlier house presentation, and myrrh, cited by Elena Vosnaki, remain in the background of the main notes.
What the label declares
The house publishes a list of twenty-five ingredients for Ambre Sultan. After alcohol, water and fragrance come two UV filters, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane and ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, an antioxidant, BHT, and three colorants: a yellow, CI 15985, a red, CI 14700, and a green, CI 42053.
It declares sixteen regulated allergens, including coumarin, eugenol, isoeugenol, cinnamyl alcohol and benzyl cinnamate. No natural material appears under its own name. An earlier version of the list carried benzophenone-3 in place of ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, and no cinnamyl alcohol.
Similar perfumes
Similar notes and family, from other houses.
- PatchouliRéminiscence
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- Shalimar Philtre De ParfumGuerlain
- Black UpBlack Up
- Cuir OttomanParfum d'Empire
- Mandorlo di SiciliaAcqua Di Parma
- L'Ambre des Merveilles CalligraphieHermès
- L’Eau d’AmbreL'Artisan Parfumeur
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