L'Artisan Parfumeur
Timbuktu
Timbuktu appeared in 2004, the second stop in L’Artisan Parfumeur’s travel collection. Bertrand Duchaufour composed it on returning from a stay in Mali, after the wusulan, a scented ritual Malian women pass from mother to daughter. Green mango and pink pepper open onto a karo karounde flower rare in perfumery, which incense, papyrus and vetiver fill with smoke.
- Brand
- L'Artisan Parfumeur
- Launch year
- 2004
- Perfumer
- Bertrand Duchaufour
- Gender
- Unisex
- Olfactory family
- Woody
- Concentration
- Eau de Toilette
Where to buy
L’Artisan Parfumeur launched Timbuktu in 2004. The formula is the work of Bertrand Duchaufour, already the author of Méchant Loup for the house, who brought it back from a journey to West Africa.
The wusulan
The wusulan is a Malian ritual for scenting hair and skin, handed down from mother to daughter, credited with the power to draw love. The house makes it the starting point of the perfume and calls up the etymology of the word, per fumum, through smoke.
A travel collection
The creation is the second in a series the house devoted to distant places. It now sits in La Collection, where the house keeps its timeless pieces alongside Mûre et Musc and Histoire d’Orangers.
A flower never used before
Karo karounde, a flowering shrub of West Africa, is said to be used in perfumery for the first time here, according to what the house says of it. It describes the shrub as wild and charismatic, and gives its botanical name, Leptactina senegambica.
What the house says today
Its European page puts forward only three materials — pink pepper, karo karounde, vetiver — and ranks the fragrance among its unisex scents. It sells for one hundred and seventy euros for one hundred millilitres, at the same price as Dzongkha, another creation of Bertrand Duchaufour for the house.
Olfactory pyramid
- Top notesThe first minutes
- Heart notesThe heart of the perfume
- Base notesWhat lingers
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The advertising
No face, no film
No known campaign for Timbuktu: no face, no film, no named photographer. The house let the launch rest on its African story.
L’Artisan Parfumeur ran no advertising campaign for Timbuktu. No face, no film, no photographer or art director is named, neither in 2004 nor since.
What made the fragrance known rests on the story and on the reviews: the Malian ritual, the perfumer’s journey, and the articles CaFleureBon devoted to it in 2015 and in 2019, each with a draw arranged with the house. No advertising credit comes out of that.