MALA ° PERFUME OIL

Vibe ° Floramber ° Sacred Temple Garland ° Incense

Inspired by flower garlands threaded for rituals commemorating life, love and death in New Delhi, with swirls of temple incense, saffron and henna. Deep, sacred, dark and sensuous.

“I missed my old [New Delhi] haunts and scents of the little Gold Leaf cigarettes I smoked, tea, spices, garlands of rose, carnation and marigold dangling from the wedding shops, so I recreated that place in this perfume, Mala, as in, a garland of flowers, beads, and stories; in Spanish, a bad woman. I use a single drop of scent of a loose woman°—choya nakh oil—to fix the perfume, so it lingers.”

—Tanaïs, “Mala,” In Sensorium: Notes for My People

°medieval Indian double entendre for roasted seashell oil, perhaps because of the long fingernail like shape of this mollusk