As a kid growing up in Sharjah, I lived in a house with a small flowering tree that never seemed to bloom. I watched it for nearly a year and couldn't work out why. Then, after one windy day, the bougainvillea beside it bent in over the little tree, shading it from the Sharjah sun. Within days it came alive and began to flower: creamy, lightly honeyed, powdery. That was my first experience of frangipani, and with this project I set out to rebuild that smell from memory.

Al Hosh (الحوش) is colloquial Arabic for courtyard, the open space at the heart of a traditional home where family gathers, children play, and trees grow under the open sky. It's where that little frangipani tree stood, and where this blend truly begins.

Frangipani is available as an aromatic material only in absolute form. Diluted, it comes close to the living flower, but not quite. An absolute holds the heavier end of the flower faithfully, yet loses much of the volatile top, the part that only exists in the air around a living tree.

Starting from an absolute meant starting at a disadvantage, but it also opened the door to an artistic interpretation. So I supplemented it with other top notes, grapefruit and orange blossom among them. I explored several directions and built a large base to draw from across a few releases. Al Hosh is the first to come out of it.

Let me begin with the blend's cornerstone, which means starting from the middle. Frangipani sits as a middle note, carrying the flower's signature heady, weighted presence: honeyed, powdery, creamy. From there it moves smoothly into Greek Chios mastic, the finest I found after sampling many.

Now from the top. Before you reach the frangipani, you're greeted by Moroccan orange blossom and magnolia, followed by jasmine and almond. Coconut and Mysore sandalwood act as a unifying voice, binding everything together, while tuberose adds its own quiet touch.

Past the middle, orange blossom returns briefly before you finally land on a bed of Moroccan rose, a fresh, tea-like closing note to the journey.

Al Hosh is an oud-free blend, which keeps it within the Dukkan price point. For those who'd like to take it further, I'll likely offer oud add-ons as an option.