A quintessence of carnal pleasures a fruity, spice-laden oriental, aziyadé opens with a splash of pomegranate juice before yielding candied date, prune and orange notes. Its cornucopia of aphrodisiac spices draws us into a sensuous feast where tears of incense melt into musk, cistus and carob. Aziyadé: an outrageously carnal perfume. An elixir blending the aphrodisiacs of many cultures throughout history, aziyadé draws us into a sensuous feast where the pleasures of love are intimately entwined with those of the palate. More than a fragrance, aziyadé is a flavour. The flavour of the yielding flesh of aziyadé, the heroin of pierre loti’s eponymous novel, the story of a harem in the twilight of the ottoman empire though we now know that loti’s heroin, the very embodiment of love, started out as a hero is aziyade a forbidden fruit the fragrance opens with pomegranate: for the greeks, to taste it was to drink the blood of the drunken god dionysius in order to experience the cosmic union candied dates, almonds, oranges and prunes are set alight by aphrodisiac spices: cardamom, favoured by the ancient egyptians to make their kisses more burning ceylonese cinnamon, an essential ingredient of erotic feasts for the romans, who dedicated it to venus libentina in her temples ginger, used in china to stimulate mucous membranes, and finally egyptian cumin, used in the sacred prostitution rituals of the sumerian empire. Aziyadé’s oriental sillage draws us into the smoke-laden atmospher...