parfums*PARFUMS Series 3 Incense: Ouarzazate (2002)
by Comme des Garçons

Ouarzazate opens up with a clearly anise note that disappears in a blink of an eye giving space to a guaiac wood note accompanied by spicy notes, specially pepper.

through time this combination almost completely disappears leaving a herbal/incense tone which gives a very peaceful sensation in a wonderful drydown.

9th October, 2011.

Bitter, spicy cedar, herbs drying in the autumn and apothecary drawers. I still wonder where did I found incense the first time I smelled it.

8th September, 2011.

Distinguished to extinguished in 3 hours flat. Ouarzazate is a spicy-leather that only really qualifies as an incense fragrance upon drydown. Before then, it’s all pepper, sage and nutmeg against a woodland backdrop. The black pepper is the star attraction here, and provokes a zesty, lemony frisson in the topnotes, before carrying off an uncanny impersonation of worn-out leather (Piper nigrum, black pepper oil, is used to the same effect in Gorilla Perfume’s Exhale). Ouarzazate has a strong kinetic impression to it, one of being smoothed over as it evolves, and it feels warmed, as if an invisible hand is rubbing you vigorously all the while.

11th July, 2011.

Fellas, choose Ouarzazate if you're looking to attract a gal you can take home to meet Mom (I don't see this fragrance being as effective in the bar scene as in the office). Overall it reads like a sweet, non-astringent/non-tannic cedar. The incense is not particularly obvious. I can wear it, and any woman could, but I'd prefer to catch it on the breeze from a man passing by.

18th December, 2010.

Ouarzazate is less particular than Avignon, and more playful than Kyoto, the only two others in this series I know. It would actually make a great mainstream men's fragrance, and I mean this as a compliment. It's balanced, subtle but noticeable, beautiful to smell but not extravagant, and a fragrance that straight men wouldn't be embarrassed to wear in a group of straight men. All the attributes of a classic men's scent.

14th December, 2010.

“Raisinous” incense.

Ouarzazate’s opening is redolent of dried fruit, sweet spices, and leather, with a mildly astringent frankincense emerging slowly over time. The incense and raisin accord that coalesces out of these is deep, dark, and compelling. As Ouarzazate develops, its balance tips farther and farther toward the incense, and while the dried fruit subsides, a salty-sweet amber, rich in labdanum, rises to take its place.

The incense, dried fruit, and amber structure that nose Mark Buxton built for Ouarzazate foreshadows that of colleague Bertrand Duchaufour’s Jubilation XXV for Amouage, though leaner and cleaner in texture, and without the later scent’s baroque honeyed floral flourishes. It dries down into the smoky-woody territory explored since in kindred scents like Dzongkha and Timbuktu.

Ouarzazate assumes its own place in the Comme des Garçons incense series. If Avignon is liturgical incense, Kyoto Shinto temple incense, and Zagorsk incense burning in an icy fir grove, Ouarzazate is spiced fruit incense that flirts coyly with the culinary. It is the sweetest, densest, and thickest of these, but also the most rounded, sensuous, and approachable of the lot. No gothic austerity here, but instead a warm, enveloping, (if also decidedly exotic,) olfactory blanket. To wit, a fine recommendation for anyone first exploring the ever-expanding universe of incense-themed niche fragrances.

14th December, 2009.