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.
Victoria Frolova keeps the radiance of a dry wood where cognac would carry the brightness of champagne; Michelyn Camen sees in it, eleven years on, a summit of Bertrand Duchaufour at L’Artisan.
Olfastory’s review
Bois de Jasmin — Victoria Frolova, March 2011
Favourable. What she keeps first is the radiance: a dry composition of woods, vetiver and incense, with a rare capacity for flight. From the pepper and citrus of the opening to the earth of the patchouli and the musk, the dark materials seem to her shot through with fresh, effervescent layers.
She hears there the rich warmth of cognac joined to the shimmering brightness of champagne, and places Timbuktu on the side of the dry woods. Vetiver, sandalwood and patchouli form in her eyes a fine classical triptych.
CaFleureBon — Michelyn Camen, December 2015
Favourable. She holds Timbuktu to be one of the finest juices Bertrand Duchaufour ever gave the house, eleven years after its release, and the best way into the perfumer’s work.
She sees in it a study in apparent simplicity, and recalls the answer the perfumer gave her in 2010 when she asked what makes a great perfume: time is the best judge of it.