Nisreen

Sep 5, 2026 Maher Elkhaldi

Yes — I’d fix the prose itself rather than just make minor substitutions. The main issue is that a few sentences feel explanatory in a way that interrupts the emotional progression.

This release marks two small changes.

Co-authored is now part of Unscripted. Co-authored grew out of Unscripted to begin with, and the unscripted quality is inherently there, so keeping them separate stopped making sense. Every product page already names the vendor who holds the stock and the artisans behind it, which is most of what a separate category was carrying anyway.

Releases now have names. I used to lean on a hierarchy — bases, themes, genres — as a conceptual guide, both for you browsing the site and for me making the products. I wrote about that in my taxonomy piece. The longer I sit with it, the more I feel that a single release name is enough. It’s looser, less structured, and easier to hold in your head. A release can draw from different bases or genres, curated or unscripted, and still come together under one name. The first release is Nisreen.

The name was inspired first and foremost by a ten-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza whose account I’ve been following. Check out Nisreen’s page on Instagram. She posts about the challenges she faces, but mostly about how she gets through her days — how she, other children her age, and Palestinians across Gaza are surviving a genocide we watch unfold on our screens every day. And she does it with a smile.

That’s what made her my inspiration: Palestinians can never be broken.

This is my tribute to her. I’ve never met her or spoken with her, but that’s beside the point. If she ever comes across this site, I hope she finds some comfort in knowing that her presence, in however small a way, inspired something here.

The meaning of the name felt fitting too. In Arabic, Nisreen (نسرين) refers to the wild rose. It felt right for the kind of products this website offers.

This keeps your voice, but makes the transitions feel more natural and lets the Nisreen section carry more weight.

Santal Oceania

May 30, 2026 Maher Elkhaldi

I contemplated building a Sandalwood blend for a long while, ever since my first attempt: Purple Sandalwood — a blend from my very early days in perfumery, not listed here as a product. So what is different about this one? Two things: technique, and range. I knew I loved Mysore sandalwood’s creamy profile, Australian sandalwood’s drier character, and Ceylon sandalwood’s greener, slightly oceanic quality. That last aspect was the key: oceanic. More particularly, the salty aspect of it. I devised a technique to mesh Mysore and Australian sandalwood together while teasing out an oceanic, salty character — without resorting to the use of Ceylon sandalwood itself, and therefore avoiding profile elements that did not fit the vision I had for this particular project. The outcome is a sandalwood accord that is simultaneously creamy and slightly salty. What makes this especially exciting to me is that I went as far as developing a dedicated distillation recipe for producing this material itself, so it may later serve other projects as well. This should not be mistaken for a perfume formula; it is a recipe for producing a material that can later plug into a formula. Second, the range of directions this Oceanic Sandalwood profile makes possible. It can move from floral, to indolic sweetness, to spicy, resinous, and woody territories — all while remaining tied together by the same creamy oceanic sandalwood backbone.

My Taxonomy

Apr 27, 2026 Maher Elkhaldi

This is how I organize my work in perfumery as I strive to remain clear about intention, structure, and what each composition is meant to be. My work, so far, moves through three strategies which I refer to as Compositions: Solos, Bases, and Genres, shaped across three ways of making, which I call Signature: Unscripted, Curated, and Co-authored. Signature Unscripted is discovery-led. I work directly with materials without a fixed formula. The composition develops in real time through interaction with the raw materials themselves. Curated is integrity-led. I seek and select only high-quality work from trusted artisans and collectors I have built relationships with over time. Everything is offered exactly as I receive it—unaltered, uncompromised, and in its original form. Co-authored is collaborative. I set the initial direction, then hand it to another perfumer to reinterpret or develop further. Think of it like a kitchen: I make the dough, they take it and shape it into what they see fit. Composition (Architecture) Solos standalone work. No shared base, no continuation, no structural link to other perfumes. Each piece exists fully on its own. Bases came from my curiosity to work from a shared foundation as a point of departure. Instead of starting from scratch every time, I use a common base as a branching structure—allowing me to explore different directions from a single olfactive starting point. It creates a controlled divergence space: one root, many paths. Genres sit between repetition and reinvention. It came from a different need entirely—the request for continuity. People often want a perfume to return, to be “the same again,” but I generally aim not to repeat myself in a literal way. Genres allow me to revisit an idea without freezing it. The core narrative remains recognizable. It is a way to stay in dialogue with an idea without locking it into stasis. Extensibility Orthogonal to Signature and Composition is the idea of Extensibility. This concept evolved from an earlier approach I called X Editions, where “X” represented whatever a customer wanted to add to a blend. Over time, that open-ended flexibility became too loose, and I moved toward a more refined and constrained set of controlled additions. Having worked on a few releases, I realized that certain blends—specific implementations of compositions—can naturally accommodate additional notes, either to amplify an existing profile or to introduce a complementary direction. The goal is not to transform the perfume into something else, but to extend its language without breaking its identity. This idea comes from my research in human-computer interaction and modular systems thinking, where systems are designed as templates for interaction rather than fixed objects. In the same way, these perfumes function as structured frameworks—allowing variation and personal direction while preserving core identity. Intuition This framework reflects how I currently understand my work and how it evolves. Often intuition leads first, and only later reveals its structure—almost as if it is saying: "this is what I meant all along." I am simply putting that into words.

Blue Roast

Apr 2, 2026 Maher Elkhaldi

Many of my blends come to life through the slow, intentional mingling of oils, while others emerge fully formed from ideas I carry in my mind. This collection is one such concept—an exploration of Blue Lotus, Coffee, and Black Ambergris. Sourced from Sri Lanka, Hawaii, Thailand, and India, Blue Lotus introduces an airy and aquatic profile, true to the nature of water lilies. This contrasts beautifully with the deep, roasted richness of Coffee and the oceanic, mineral nuances of Black Ambergris.  This base is anchored with a trio of ouds—Manipuri, Kalakassi, and 20-year-aged Cambodian oud—added in subtle amounts to depth and longevity without assertion. You might ask, is the blue lotus noticeable? Is it not exorbitantly expensive? I would argue that it is indeed noticeable, and yes, it is expensive. But in perfumery, there are many techniques a perfumer can use to amplify certain facets of a note while incorporating supporting elements to build a complete composition. The notes I found that blend beautifully to achieve this effect are Black Ambergris, Fir Balsam, and Coffee. It is an entourage of notes, not just one. But Blue Lotus is certainly given special treatment, and I hope you will find that it stands at the center of the composition. This was Blue Roast.

Nisreen

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