Timbuktu (2004)
by L'Artisan Parfumeur

I may just be a paranoid old fart, but I would swear an oath in any court this was a different scent years ago, when I had a sample and loved it. What I just bought myself for X-mas (the new box) reeks of cheap soap laced with white pepper and is clearly chock-full of the laundry detergent aromachems I have everlong detested and always will. I couldn't possibly have liked THIS at any point of my fragrant career.

24^th December, 2014

Before I actually tried this, I didn't know what to expect. Read a lot of reviews and was in limbo about getting it. Finally got a bottle and liked it. What took me so long? Starts of green and a little earthy. You definitely get the vetiver in this. That last about 20 minutes then it turns slightly floral. At one point this reminded me of Encre Noire Sport (which I happen to like). The drydown has a slight soapy vibe (may be the berry note). As others have mentioned, it does have a sour moment, but this is a very good fragrance nonetheless. 7.5/10

20^th December, 2014

The mango and berries appear upfront and refreshing. Pretty quickly a really nice floral appears mixed with a nice light wood. There's good sillage and longevity like most L'Artisan fragrances. The wood and flower are what makes this exotic and the incense finishes it off well by being a little sweet. This is so intelligently made it's fun. The price isn't bad for something so interesting. If you like Silver Mountain Water you should give this one a try. Also if you like the matte quality of PdN New York I recommend this for the papyrus.

23^rd November, 2014 (Last Edited: 22^nd November, 2014)

This is the fragrance I use when I want to reset my nose or clear my head. There is something about it that induces calmness and stillness. It is a seemingly simple composition - dry woods, incense, vetiver, and a fruit note - but it has an ability to haunt me like no other. I really like the way that Duchaufour kept all the elements in balance so that the smokiness of the incense is moistened by the mango and the dryness of the woods balanced by the damp green rootiness of the vetiver. So, your nose perceives it as simultaneously dry and juicy, smokey-bitter and sweet, dusty and earthy. It's a marvel, really, and one that draws my nose to my skin in fascination time and time again.

Timbuktu has a cold, shadowy, dark sort of presence that sets it in direct opposition to another vetiver-based incense composition, Shaal Nur, which is sunny and extroverted. It is, like the name suggests, as mysterious and as exotic as the African continent. One of my brothers used to live in Chad (don't ask - he now lives in Syria - Syria for crying out loud!) and before the birth of my first child, he trekked out to a nearby village and after shopping around, bought a beautiful tablecloth that had been hand-embroidered by a cooperative of women from that village. When his thoughtful present got to me in Montenegro, all the way from Chad, I unfolded it and out of the corners of the folds fell this red dust. This dust smelled kind of like Timbuktu, and so wearing it is always a spiritual type of experience for me.

13^th August, 2014

Genre: Leather

What do you do when you detest one of the most revered and critically acclaimed fragrances in recent memory? If you’re me, you keep trying it, in the hope of someday figuring out what all the love is about. In this spirit I’ve once again sampled Timbuktu, a scent where I’ve conspicuously parted company with most who write about fragrance. The result? I still dislike it vehemently, but I’ve at least come to understand more fully why.

Original review:
I’ve been trying Timbuktu on and off for years, and while I’ve come to understand what Bertrand Duchaufour is trying to get at here, I still don’t like it. There’s a piercing note at Timbuktu’s center that drills its way in right between my eyes and rasps away at my sinuses. For a variation on this theme that’s not merely pain-free, but outright pleasant, I’ll take Duchaufour’s later Dzongkha.

05^th July, 2014

I honestly thought I had reviewed Timbuktu years ago - this is just one of the many reasons I revisit all of my samples.

Timbuktu is a beautifully airy and incredibly dry fragrance that leaves not so much sillage but a brief olfactory afterimage of the moving wearer. It is bone-dry, among the most arid scents I've sampled, but the composition leaves a good deal of space, allowing the different facets more room to move about. As for the smell itself, it is the ghost of fruit haunting scorched sand and wood, as though mango fruit juice had been left to dry out for days in the sun after seeping into a length of some charred wood like a cross between red cedar and guaiac. It is the scent equivalent of blending postcards of a Hawaiian beach, an Arizonan desert, and a Nepalese temple: a sort of tropical Gucci Pour Homme. A pleasure to wear.

28^th May, 2014