{"title":"Next","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"hainan-rose","title":"Hainan Rose","description":"\u003cp\u003eHere's a confession: I always thought of myself as a not-a-rose guy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEarly in my journey into artisanal perfumery, the Turkish Delight profile turned me off almost every time. As luck would have it, that was most of what I sampled back then.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLater, I explored the wider range of rose profiles and started to appreciate the nuance in each species, cultivar, region, and even batch. I began working rose into my blends, and gradually it claimed a main spot. \u003ca href=\"\/products\/qinan-rose\"\u003eQinan Rose\u003c\/a\u003e came out of that stretch, and it's the one people kept asking me to repeat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's the thing: I don't remake blends. I don't keep formulas, on purpose. So this isn't a reissue, and it isn't meant to be one. What I wanted was to return to the same materials and see what my nose would do with them now, a few blends later. The materials are the thread. Everything else is intuition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo I explored that direction again. Same rose, same supplier, with another layer of premium ouds and roses on top. The result, Hainan Rose, is a rose oud that holds from the first moment to the drydown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI made a large batch of the base and I'm offering part of it, for now, as an attar. A spray version may follow, but much later. Why? In my experience, perfumer's alcohol can amplify a note or silence it completely. When alcohol is the carrier, I let a blend age until it settles into balance. That's a discussion for another day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe ouds\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ouds in the base came from collectors and oud suppliers. There's Assafi, to my nose one of the most leathery ouds out there. Don't let that scare you: it's used in a small amount, there to give the other ouds a shoulder to lean on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen there's a creamy aged Malay from 2012 and a Manipuri from the same period. Not funky, not cheesy, just honeyed oudy goodness. There's an aged Merauke from 2010 and a vintage Burmese from 2005, the same two I offered as add-ons. And a premium two-day-soak Thai like no other: floral, woody, and slightly sweet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe roses\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the rose side, there are two vintage SQ roses, Hindi and Bulgarian, plus the White rose used in Qinan Rose. Borrowing a lesson from that blend and others, I also added a dose of a vintage SQ Papua oud-rose (listed here as \u003ca href=\"\/products\/two-souls\"\u003eTwo Souls\u003c\/a\u003e). Why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVintage materials do wonders for a blend. Sometimes, no matter how well crafted a formula is, you approach the point asymptotically: closer and closer, but never quite there. You're stuck at 95%, and what you need is a shift to reach that last 5%. That's where vintage materials come in.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Hainan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThen there's the hallmark, the material the blend is named for: Hainan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eFinding good Chinese oud is its own pursuit. Plenty of it is clean, correct, and unobjectionable, and honestly, forgettable. What takes effort to find is character: the kind that stops you mid-swipe, makes you pause, and keeps you inhaling. That's what I was after, and most of what I sampled wasn't it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eIn the end, I chose three. One is a decade old (circa 2016), from a collector who was encouraged to take it by the Chinese collector who originally owned it. The other two came from artisans and collectors renowned in their own right. One dates to 2019. The other may be younger, but it's wild, traditionally distilled, and has a full-blown, satisfying Hainan profile.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\"\u003eA Spray?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eYep. In the works. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"elkhaldi studio","offers":[{"title":"2.5gr","offer_id":48888256135321,"sku":null,"price":325.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"0.5gr","offer_id":49004050546841,"sku":null,"price":75.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0720\/5866\/7161\/files\/HainanSet.png?v=1789126794"},{"product_id":"bateekh","title":"Bateekh","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen I made Ananas Tabac, I meant for tobacco to become a regular part of what I release. Most people wore it without any issue, but a few reported skin sensitivity, so I discontinued the blend entirely. That didn't change my plans. If anything, it made me more eager to finish this one: a fresh, fruity tobacco.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI wanted to treat tobacco as a base you can build on, and to offer an artisanal tobacco at a price that stays within reach. To me, tobacco is earthy, sweet, damp, and woody all at once. It's a wide canvas that can hold many colors without feeling crowded.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike Dukkan, this one began with a visit to a café. The coffee beans caught my attention: distinctly tobacco-like, with beautiful fruity notes of banana and chocolate. At the same time, I was working on a watermelon accord. Slowly, the two ideas merged in my mind into one blend. That's how these two worlds met.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the café where it started.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is remarkably fresh. The structure rests on Virginia tobacco and Hindi oud, with floral, leathery Moroccan saffron, roasted Brazilian maté, and caramelized coffee adding depth. A tincture of Nepalese musk gives the composition volume without weighing it down.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe opening is where it gets interesting. It's fruity and floral, with banana, peach, blood orange, and my own watermelon accord. 🍉 I built the accord from cucumber, tomato leaf, and berries, with a touch of melonal. It's fresh and crisp and, to my nose, has a balanced sweetness rather than the obvious sweetness you might expect from watermelon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKashani rose carries it from there. Its floral weight bridges the bright opening into the base. It's rosy, though not as rosy as Dukkan can be. Here, the rose sits underneath the fruit instead of leading it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBateekh means watermelon in Arabic. For me, as a Palestinian, it means much more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhy Bateekh?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCut a watermelon open and you'll see red, black, white, and green, the colors of the Palestinian flag. After 1967, when Israeli colonial authorities criminalized displays of the Palestinian flag in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians began using the fruit to carry those colors without carrying the flag. Read more about it \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6326312\/watermelon-palestinian-symbol-solidarity\/\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe artist Sliman Mansour once told the story of an exhibition of his in Ramallah being shut down, and of an officer of the Israeli colonial regime warning the artists that even a watermelon painted in those colors would be confiscated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat story has always stayed with me. Something ordinary, something you grew up eating without a second thought, becomes a way of holding on to who you are.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can ban a flag. But not its colors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor me, Bateekh is one of those things. It's familiar. It's Palestinian. It's home. And in its own quiet way, it carries a history of resistance that is still unfolding today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMansour passed away this August. In a way, Bateekh is a tribute to him. Perfume is a different form of expression than painting, but it felt right to carry his watermelon forward in my own way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEditions\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis base turned out to work remarkably well in directions beyond its first formula, and that took me some time to appreciate. I've offered add-ons for a few blends before, but with Bateekh I became much more aware of how easily a new material could overwhelm what makes the composition work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo instead of simply adding something new, I rebuilt the balance around a central material for each edition: the Malinau 2016 and Hainan 2019 ouds, the Malay 2012 oud, and the SQ Hindi Rose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eMalinau 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eHainan 2019\u003c\/strong\u003e ouds: the Malinau offers a beautiful corn-silk quality with a slightly sweet earthiness, while the Hainan adds a cooling herbal sparkle.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eMalay 2012\u003c\/strong\u003e is darker and sweeter, with earthy, creamy, caramelized, and resinous facets.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eSQ Hindi Rose\u003c\/strong\u003e is everything you'd expect from an aged Hindi gulab rose: sweet, dense, and unmistakably rosy, with age leaving its mark.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI genuinely don't think one is better than another. If anything, they complement each other. Each brings something different to Bateekh, and each asks for a slightly different balance around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery edition is still Bateekh, but the composition shifts depending on what sits at its center. I wanted to give each material room to speak while keeping the character of the blend intact. Some elements are dialed up or down, not because the original formula needed correcting, but because each material called for a different conversation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe original Bateekh Tabac is also available. Built around the Hindi oud and Kashani rose that started it all, it's the only version with a touch of kewra. The editions simply take the same idea somewhere new.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFuture Bateekhs?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI've set a portion of the base aside, because I don't think Bateekh Tabac is finished yet. And if Dukkan and Nightfall both landed for you, I think this one will too.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"elkhaldi studio","offers":[{"title":"Kashani (OG) \/ 15ml","offer_id":48998184386713,"sku":null,"price":85.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Kashani (OG) \/ 30ml","offer_id":48998184419481,"sku":null,"price":160.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"SQ Hindi Rose \/ 15ml","offer_id":48997633163417,"sku":null,"price":125.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"SQ Hindi Rose \/ 30ml","offer_id":48997633196185,"sku":null,"price":240.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Malay \/ 15ml","offer_id":48998473760921,"sku":null,"price":145.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Malay \/ 30ml","offer_id":48998473793689,"sku":null,"price":275.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Malinau Hainan \/ 15ml","offer_id":48997657444505,"sku":null,"price":165.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Malinau Hainan \/ 30ml","offer_id":48997657510041,"sku":null,"price":315.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0720\/5866\/7161\/files\/Bateekh.jpg?v=1789200298"},{"product_id":"misk-ateeq","title":"Misk Ateeq","description":"\u003cp\u003eI've been working on a musk blend with \u003ca href=\"\/blogs\/approach\/purple-violette-banafsaj-lilacy-etc\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ePurple\u003c\/a\u003e. That blend, dubbed Cherry Musk for now, is set to arrive in December or January.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis one, Misk Ateeq, is a branch of Cherry Musk, taking it in a different direction. It has a touch of spice that teases out something else entirely: vintage leather, the jacket of an old book in an old library.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo my nose, it stays balanced. Not overly gourmand, but resinous, spicy, and sweet enough to bring out that old leather, maybe even the dried glue of an old binding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's an impression of age, reverse-engineered through the way the materials come together. In some ways, it reminds me of a small attar batch I made a couple of years ago when I was starting out, \u003ca href=\"\/products\/ghazali-vintage\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eGhazali Vintage\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo what's inside? Purple, with its iris, ambergris, lilac, and nigella, among others. Then come the ouds, the musk, oakwood, and the spices.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe oud notes come from aged Koh Kong and premium Thai ouds. The musk is a concoction I made from Tibetan, Mongolian, Siberian, and Nepalese musks, bringing a deep animalic character to the blend. Oakwood brings a balsamic woody character I couldn't find in any other material. The spices were more of a balancing act, and honestly, I can't remember exactly how I built them. Broadly, they're earthy, sharp, dusty, and slightly gourmand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen I started, it was almost a spectacle to watch. Purple completely ate up every bit of musk I added. I'd add more, and it would disappear again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt some point, I decided to stop. \"Khalas. Let it sit.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnly then did the musk start to take over. After a few weeks, the blend reached a point where both sides finally decided to play along. That's the part I can't rush, and the part I've learned not to fight. Just sit back and observe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApply it to skin and you're hit first with a wave of spice, balsamic notes, and an animalic edge. Then comes something like fermented fruits before it starts transforming into Purple's powdery iris and ambergris. For me, the oud begins to reveal itself somewhere in the middle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis blend needs a bit of time to sit on the skin and warm up. Projection is moderate, as you'd expect from an attar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eP.S. The product image is AI-generated 🤓\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"elkhaldi studio","offers":[{"title":"2.5gr","offer_id":49012944961689,"sku":null,"price":175.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true},{"title":"0.5","offer_id":49013235777689,"sku":null,"price":37.0,"currency_code":"OMR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0720\/5866\/7161\/files\/Misk_Ateeq.jpg?v=1789198040"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0720\/5866\/7161\/collections\/Coming_Soon-fixed-4.jpg?v=1789205574","url":"https:\/\/www.elkhaldistudio.com\/collections\/next.oembed","provider":"elkhaldi studio","version":"1.0","type":"link"}