Al Bustan

If you're sitting in an urban environment with lack of access to a garden, I guess this can transport you there by the simple act of swiping a generous amount to your wrist and allowing to warm up, just closing your eyes for a few seconds.  With Al Bustan, you're immediately struck by a beautiful amber note, which suddenly blooms into 1,000 different olfactory sensations. As with Warda, it transports me back to my youth spent in the garden at home with all manner of plants forming a beautiful and heady cocktail of background scent.  There's even a hint of the rugged clay soil of the gardens of Northamptonshire.  As the oud heats up on the skin, you notice a change in turn to a more tropical note with hints of ripe honeydew melon and a tropical fruit platter. 

We decided to name this oil, Al Bustan, which means “The Garden” in Arabic, because it reminds me of gardens around the world that I visited. I'm blessed to be well travelled, and I've been in the forests of Malaysia where wild agarwood trees are growing, to the orange orchards of Marrakesh and across Europe from the gardens of Versailles to the gardens of the Alhambra.  The garden is a central historic feature within Islamic civilisation as it seeks to project imagery from descriptions of Paradise in the Quran into daily life and the tradition of gardens filtered through Spain to the rest of Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance Era.  

Just being present in a garden, close to nature subjects you to a form of sensory healing, due to the combination of the colours surrounding you and the smell, that positively impacts your mental health. This oil replicates that experience and feels like a journey through the different gardens with its scent profile ranging from subtle floral scents to a more robust and heavier tropical scent, all without leaving your seat.  

2.5g bottle depicted is for illustration purposes only