Purple Attar

I wanted to explore the Purple genre in different directions. Rather than treating Purple as a single composition, I began exploring adjacent hues within its spectrum: black, blue, brown, and beyond. Whether these projects will ultimately come to fruition remains to be seen. At the same time, I was developing something especially meaningful to me as a Palestinian: Olive. I first worked with olive leaf in the original Ghazali. The material offered an earthy, creamy bitterness alongside green, slightly tart, and woody facets that I found captivating. Eventually, I felt drawn back to it, this time through the lens of Purple. I amplified Purple's core elements—blackcurrant, oud, orris, and ambergris—then introduced a generous dose of olive leaf. I also processed the blend in a way that enveloped it in a gentle smoky haze without ever obscuring the Purple at its core. The blend spent months resting in a camel skin pouch, Kuppi, which I revisited periodically as it evolved. Over time, it began to feel complete. What started as an experiment seemed worthy of becoming an attar, with a spray interpretation to follow later. In essence, Purple Olive is Purple with its defining elements—ambergris, orris, oud, and blackcurrant—amplified and refracted through the distinctive character of olive leaf & fruit. Around the same period, I acquired a small collection of vintage ouds: vintage Merauke, vintage Manipuri, and vintage Burmese. The quantities were modest, but the materials were exceptional. Rather than incorporating them into a single composition, I decided to explore them as companions to Purple, resulting in an attar trio. The vintage Merauke offered smooth earthy, green, and woody facets that felt naturally aligned with the Olive interpretation of Purple. In my mind, it became a natural extension of that idea. The vintage Burmese took Purple in a different direction, introducing an incense-like, leathery character. The vintage Manipuri contributed a deep woody richness with subtle molasses-like nuances, absent the heavier funk often associated with Hindi ouds. All three compositions remain unmistakably Purple. One leans toward olive, while the other two venture further down the oud path.