Thebes

1 reseña

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• Dr.No

  December 21, 2025

  

  The definitive proof of why niche is niche. Sultan Pasha has been serving premium attars for years; to put it plainly, 3ml of an attar like Hindi Oud Nasha costs the same as a 50ml bottle of Absolu Aventus. In 2025, Sultan Pasha launches its perfume line: four new proposals in collaboration with Christian Carbonnel, all in pure extract at 50ml for around $350 (the price of an average Kilian perfume). 🖋️ Thebes draws inspiration from Egyptian tomb engravings and the contrast between life and death, light and darkness. It sounds like a philosophical scent à la Filippo Sorcinelli, but it isn’t. 💐 Thebes opens with a floral charge alongside aldehydes, soapy, with an earthy touch; it’s an oily perfume on the skin. The floral blend is perfect and you can hardly distinguish a specific flower. It smells and radiates cleanliness, a luxurious and sophisticated scent. It’s unisex but leans feminine in the opening. You might suspect patchouli for that earthy note, but it’s not there. But what do you think? The journey doesn’t end… 🌿 Thebes is complex; over time it settles and transitions into a dry vetiver that dominates the dry-down with a creamy texture. The floral charge moves to the background and the aldehydes and soapy notes disappear. In this phase, I feel it more as unisex. This complexity in opening and dry-down caught me by surprise. The quality of the raw materials and the experience of both noses is outstanding. I attribute the feminine side of Thebes more to Carbonnel, as a nose for Xerjoff, he has a marked inclination towards the feminine. It’s just a hunch. I loved the transition, the rounded and polished nature of the composition. The vetiver is a bit earthy and I liked that quite a lot. Nothing to do with the “vetiver” of Roja or Creed, which offer a friendly green aroma to make us believe “this is vetiver”, in short, bloody perfumes. 💡 A masterpiece for those seeking floral, aldehydic, and soapy compositions, beyond a Pikovaya Dama (reformulated years ago) which is also by Carbonnel. I don’t take away any merit; I own it and like it, but comparing an EDP (Pikovaya) with an extract (Thebes) isn’t fair, besides Thebes dominates the vetiver. Is it fair to compare the sound of a current F1 V6 with a supercharged V10 from the past? I’m not even going to answer. Thebes plays in another league, showing duality between opening and dry-down with high quality, emitting a luxurious, clean, and sophisticated vibe. A perfume any house like MDCI or Henry Jacques would have wanted on their roster. 10 ✨