Chillum
by AbdesSalaam Attar Profumo

If you don't care for the cistus labdanum in TABAC, you should probably try CHILUM instead. This is a dusty lightly spiced tobacco with none of the sweet-savory vibes commonly associated with tobacco absolue. Apart from a little piquancy in the beginning, I don't get much ginger elsewhere but the somewhat exotic smoky-musty note is unmistakably tobacco. Distinctively masculine, in a mature, world-weary man sort of way. Shoring up the somewhat ephemeral top is probably one of the most complex and enduring sandalwood I've come across, with nuances that remind me faintly of charred timber and woodsmoke. Outstanding.

18th February, 2011.

Chillum smells dry, dusty and mildly spicey, like an old shop whose woodwork has absorbed the molecules of its pungent wares. The scent smells foreign to my experience, so I don't have names for the notes. I find them pleasing to encounter in passing, although the scent wouldn't fit my countenance. If I caught a whiff of Chillum from a passerby, I would stop him and ask what scent he was wearing because it's distinctive and unlike what I think of Americans as wearing. I guess the best summation of Chilum's impression on me is "foreign"--and I mean that in positive way. The only other thing I noticed about the scent is that it seems to fade fairly quickly on my skin.

7th July, 2009.

Has that charred wood smell, as in Lake Flower, but stronger here. Also something rubbery (tuberose?). A bit of bitterness. Most of the profumo scents are sweet, but this one is astringent and rather strange smelling. I don’t mind it, but it isn’t what I’d reach for. It’s certainly interesting.

1st July, 2009.

Chillum

Tabarome Millesime eat your heart out.
As written on the profumo.it website, this was created as a bespoke fragrance and is built from three ingredients, Ginger, Tobacco, Sandalwood.
It opens with lots of ginger. Very nice, fresh, green smelling rather than spicy ginger. It smells like the aroma when grating the root into food. Just where it would feel sharp and spicy, at the back of the nose when you breathe in deep and long sits the tobacco note. As the shimmer of the ginger drops down a little, this tobacco comes forward leaving a period of ginger flavoured tobacco, or is it the other way around? The ginger accents the green leafy aspect of the tobacco and the tobacco darkens and warms the spice. This is not a huge tobacco note but a slightly shyer one. Quite soon, the sandalwood comes through into the heart adding a third factor to the balance. It is a slightly vetivery smelling wood to me which keeps the green aspects alive.
Then the drydown - a very nice balance held together by the santal at centre stage with the other players interacting above.
The overall effect is a smoky green, without ever smelling burnt. I can see where the name came from.
Sillage is quite low with this one and longevity medium; the sandalwood remaining after the other notes have drifted away.

This is considerably less complex than the others from this house I have tried thus far though the notes themselves are quite rich and and the balance delicate.

16th June, 2009.