Eau de Parfum – Mumtaz-l-Mahal

This perfume is an ode to the Rose, the Mughal emperor’s favourite flower, that Mumtaz often smelled on the Persian miniatures that portray her. A floral and powdered perfume but also a perfume of character for a cultivated, aesthete and somewhat artistic personality.

The reign of Shah Jahan is the culmination of the Mughal empire in India. When his spouse Mumtaz passed away in 1631 whilst giving birth to her fourteenth child, he decided to pay tribute to her by building the famous Taj Mahal based on the plans he drew himself, just like a paradise: a Memorial made of pure white marble.

The dynasty had imported to India the Attars’ art and know-how, the arabo-persian perfumes. A city of perfumes had been created in Kannauj, to provide the Court in Agra. Nicolas de Barry visited the place and discovered that the Attars were still
produced according to the same ancestral techniques of the time of Shah Jahan.

Those techniques still had to be adapted to the contemporary constraints but using the same raw materials. The Shah’s and his beloved wife’s perfume is the same (the rest, at that time, didn’t make any difference) but with a small drop of oud added for the emperor.

The classic imperial Attar is a trio of Kannauj rose, Sandalwood and amber. The whole is distilled together in the still.