In the fragrance community they started to talk about Nishane very recently: until the latest Esxence the brand was not widely known outside of Turkey, but now you can find its fragrances in more than 25 countries. Not so long ago the USA was put on the list of distribution. The brand's creators—brothers Murat Katran and Mert Güzel—were born, grown and got their education in Istanbul, and in 2012 decided to build up a perfume line dedicated to this city.
In my opinion, the positioning turned to be quite successful: the word “Turkey” in people’s minds is more often associated not with selective perfumery, but with the vacations in the all-inclusive system—you know, Antalya, lavish resorts, a diversified menu ... But “Istanbul” is another cup of tea: here you can find both endless Istiklal, and the quite European Cevahir, and a Hard Rock Cafe, to whose pale light the lost tourists fly like moths. Istanbul is the Blue Mosque, and the carved Dolmabahçe and many other things. Istanbul is quite varied, and this feature of the town became the key point for Nishane.
Nowadays the brand produces two lines: Cologne Parfumée which consists of four fragrances on a Mediterranean theme and is designed for the local market. There is a beautiful tradition in Turkey: to offer a guest not only some coffee and delights, but a cologne (the last one is used not as a perfume but more as a hand sanitizer, on meetings or after meals). The second, Extrait de Parfum, was being created for three years and is directed towards the customers all other the world. Now it consists of sixteen fragrances. So let’s examine them for more details!
Almost all these fragrances were created by Jorge Lee who previously worked with Quest and Givaudan; the exception is Múnegu—it’s by Sylvain Cara.
Like Istanbul itself, the collection has an indigenous and neither oriental nor European nature to the full extent. It’s also occasionally discursive but remarkable—it’s interesting to get acquainted with it if only for learning something about Turkish selective perfumery.
As I’ve said before, the new line consists of sixteen fragrances in extrait de parfum concentration. Each of these has the name in the language of those countries which has some cultural links with Istanbul.
They like tea in Turkey but prefer local sorts to Chinese—maybe that is so because Oolong tea turned to be more concentrated than you could imagine. Here it is fresh but not refreshing: there’s much strong lemon bark, curled light green leaves under the mass of boiling water, a pair of lemon balm twigs, dried figs—a sketch on the subject of eau de cologne in the airless space.
Top notes: bergamot, orange, litsea cubeba, tangerine
Middle notes: oolong, nutmeg
Base notes: musk, figs
A hyper-realistic landscape of a beach painted neon: glazing waves of the fresh orange juice, glossy bergamot syrup, pure white jasmine without any hint at indole, the tourists’ bodies anointed with argan oil. With the first inhale your head starts to swirl because of the mass of flowers—just like the native Siberian’s head would swirl if he suddenly enters Hawaii.
Top notes: bergamot, galbanum, green notes
Middle notes: jasmine, coriander seeds
Base notes: sweet ambra, musk, vanilla
The conciliatory walk over Bosphore early in the morning. The ragged ribbons of waterweed shine through the water, the almost hinted galbanum of fabulous beauty, the steam of fresh jasmine tea and the cucumber lemonade splashes—the motorboat leaves a boiling whitish blue tail on the water, the nose catches frosty sage scent, the eyes are closing—there is a long hot day in one of the most beautiful cities in the world ahead of you.
Top notes: sea grass, cypress, galbanum, sage
Middle notes: jasmine, gardenia, waterseed
Base notes: oakmoss, patchouli, ambra, musk
Bring the marple syrup to a boil, in a separate container make a passion fruit smoothie (preferably, a bit underripe) and put in a warm place for a few minutes. Crumble up the truffles separately, add some fresh cocoa powder, 1-2 raspberries and place several layers in ice-cream bowls. You can decorate the dessert with vanilla beans. Enjoy your meal!
Top notes: passion fruit, coffee, caramelized grapefruit
Middle notes: dark chocolate, linen flower, caladenia, coriander seeds
Base notes: vanilla, benzoin, eucalyptus, patchouli, dark musk
The Brazilian TV serial put to the olfactory vocabulary: intense ylang is interlaced with bergamot, strangles it, then embraces the drowsy patchouli, doesn’t get its share of the cake and falls down on the pillow of sandal cuttings where viscous vanilla syrup and a touch of tonka beans wait for it. As the curtain falls the Indole King appears onstage and nobody can hide from his anger! Wo-ho-ho!
Top notes: ylang-ylang, bergamot
Middle notes: sandal
Base notes: vanilla, tonka beans
It’s not even the Grand Bazaar but the first impressions of it which appear in the mind of a person who hasn't dealt with such variety of colors, flavours and scents before. You lazily step into the huge dark gates from Hagia Sophia side and you can’t realize how you flow into that boiling stream of people, fancy variegated pillows and lokum. From the left, through the dusty store windows the fire pot gold is glancing, from the right—the eyes of the seller of olive soap and loofah, and your legs lead you to multicolored spicy pyramids and you taste baklava in your mouth ... You come out tired but satisfied, have those whitish blue dishes in your hands, a scarf with a loose stitch on your neck, your eyes are glowing and the souvenirs are bought. Life is beautiful!
Top notes: juniper, yuzu, rosemary
Middle notes: cedar, cumin, cinnamon
Base notes: black pepper, saffron, vanilla
Enormous geranium bushes on the window ledge, endless drying bedsheets on fine strings, stretched from balcony to balcony, “Run to the market for some cardamom,” she said, a huge head of an orange tree emerging from behind. Midday, you come into a little room and stay there for an hour—where are you going? Stop, have a rest, take some coffee, we have it brand new—with nutmeg. How can you go anywhere after this?
Top notes: orange, cedar
Middle notes: cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, geranium, ylang-ylang
Base notes: patchouli, labdanum, frankincense, tobacco, ambra
Smokedried smoldering vetiver in the dull autumn rain, a new leather jacket, carved spoons for absinthe in the nearest bar of Taksim, blue flame over a wineglass—a hypnotic scene, an unmistakable sign of weekends begun and there is a whole night of bar-hopping ahead. Not the sultan but his son, whose shabby face appears in the crime reports daily.
Top notes: Javanese vetiver, absinthe, Peruvian pepper, bergamot
Middle notes: Bourbon vetiver, Haitian vetiver, neroly, tonka beans
Base notes: ambra, leather, Brazilian vetiver
A funny tuberose with a washed face, which looks much more attractive without the tons of makeup and vulgar heels everybody is tired of. It lost all its drama and the ability to hypnotize, it was brushed and dressed into an infantile pink dress … It turned to be surprisingly lifelike—in practice, a femme fatale could be a laughing girl who smells of bubble gum and sips a milkshake out there.
Top notes: ylang-ylang, sweet orange, absinthe, orange blossom
Middle notes: tuberose, gardenia, jasmine, marigold
Base notes: ambra, vetiver, sandal, musk
It is a well-balanced thing, a kaleidoscope-fragrance which would change irrevocably and show its new facet if your hand trembles once. First there are thick leaves of magnolia and pure white hat-like flowers, warmed with the sun, in a few seconds the heat is smoothed by cool ox-eyed gardenia, a little more—and the magnolia almost fades away because patchouli arrives. We’re waiting—and the sparkling osmanthus becomes icy, then, eventually, honeyed. Closer to the heart it turns into light champagne which is shrouded with frankincense evaporation after some time … It’s a dangerous thing. You can spend several hours with your hand pressed to your nose and just watch those metamorphoses. No need for giving a squirt and just going away: it would be sacrilegious.
Top notes: magnolia, gardenia
Middle notes: osmanthus, patchouli
Base notes: frankincense, oakmoss
The lovely floral water which only seems to be complicated from the beginning: violet tuberose in a velvet dress of rococo epoch, a corset, a little round mirror in pudgy hands, some shy lily of the valley on the vanity table and roaring honeysuckle over the window. In ten minutes the evening finishes to be languorous: the deep voice of heliotrope can be heard, vanilla—a bit licentious—and the shadows lengthen. Yes, it is predictable, but isn’t it beautiful? Of course it is.
Top notes: tuberose, violet, marigold, lily of the valley
Middle notes: jasmine, magnolia, rose, iris
Base notes: vanilla, honeysuckle, immortelle, heliotrope
It’s not a variation on the theme of Turkish rose but on the whole theme of the rose scent. There is almost no natural flowers, therefore there are plastic roses fragranced with ylang-ylang oil, in order of their appearance. There is rose hydrolat, sticky rose lokum with coconut flakes, rose facial tonic, some rose petal jam on which the jasmine flowers are faded. So these are all and everyone rose scents which accompany the tourist during shopping, but not the Rose-Queen-of-Flowers which anyone who felt like it has tried to create. Mischief managed!
Top notes: Spartan rose, ylang-ylang
Middle notes: Sardinian jasmine, Egyptian jasmine
Base notes: Spartan rose, musk
Saffron, the leather goods stores in Laleli area, the waterweed freshness from Bosphore, ginger tea—probably, the most eloquent fragrance about Istanbul in the Nishane collection. This city smells like this: neither the spices of the Grand Bazaar, nor a walk over the Sea of Marmara, or fish sandwiches on the Galat bridge or the sweets—it smells carved, colorific—a bedcover made of waterseed, ginger ribbons and suede with an interwoven red saffron cutting.
Top notes: althea, saffron
Middle notes: suede, ginger
Base notes: musk, leather
The expectations do not meet the reality but it’s for the better: if you know its name and have an idea of what to expect from the neighborhood of patchouli and leather, you can easily imagine a composition that consists of earth, leather and smoke which will lead to the animalistic part of the collection. In reality it’s not like that: from the first inhale you feel the sweet bitterness of burnt honey mixed with the fresh cuttings, some chamomile tea in a glass in the shape of a tulip and nearly insensible frankincense leather which hasn’t approved itself for five hours of sounding. It is the scent of the workshops where they make slippers and soft leather shoes, wickedly comfortable. Here in one room the craftsman works, and they are finishing building the second one, so the process is ongoing and everything is good.
Top notes: hyacinth, ylang-ylang, marigold, chamomile
Middle notes: patchouli, black pepper
Base notes: leather, honey, frankincense
The strong monoscent of agarwood tree: shaggy, rather strict, emerging on male skin in a nearly bestial, very sexy way. However, it doesn’t fall into flirtation with clichés of orientalism. Some cocoa, a touch of chestnut honey, monotony and undimensionality—as good as 50-year cognac.
Top notes: grapefruit, torchwood, nut grass
Middle notes: oud, saffron, ambra
Base notes: moss, sandal, guaiacwood
It’s a chameleon which is hard to recognize on other people’s skin and which changes dramatically depending on the environment, weather and … the alignment of the stars in the sky, I guess. It can shock with a knock-out dose of civet (in an enclosed space), or surprise with its light marine nature (in the windy weather on the street), or turn into tsarist leather tobacco or beastly frankincense—there would be only the animalistic mood common in all that.
Top notes: ambra, frankincense, myrrh, labdanum
Middle notes: castoreum, civet, leather, oud
Base notes: muskenone, thibetone, muskon
In this review the fragrances are given in the sequence in which Nishane itself recommends to test them. Doing things in their proper order, you will get a journey from the Galata Bridge (the first aquatic compositions) through the Grand Bazaar, Gulhane Park and Nisantasi parks to the zoo (the last animalistic fragrances), during which you can assure yourself that Istanbul really has thousands of faces and millions of scents. It can be floral, waterseed, ground, spicy, animal—whichsoever.
Getting acquainted with the brand, I would recommend to try the perfumes in the open air: under such conditions they start sounding in their full force and gleaming—every single one of them without exception needs space.
We should keep in mind that they might require some time for comprehension. Like Istanbul itself, they have their own nature with which you can both agree and enter into a debate.
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