Mystical Lotus

Blue lotus. Oh, how this name gets abused.

If you’re like me and you’ve tried dozens of different blue lotus extracts, you’d know they’re like oud. There’s the good, the bad, and the “they must have mislabeled this one” extracts.

This particular lily is one that’s always a mission to acquire. It’s why I only occasionally sell it neat (if you own it, you know what I mean) and reserve most of it to make Blue Kalbar, where it’s the core component, and which forms the foundation upon which this semi-bespoke edition was built.

Mystical Lotus, though……… there’s double the amount of blue lotus that’s in Blue Kalbar in here – on top of the what’s in Blue Kalbar already!

The math doesn’t add up, I know. It shouldn’t because Mystical Lotus isn’t a perfume. It’s not an extrait de… anything. At ~59% concentration, I’m surprised the atomizer can even handle the spray!

Blue Kalbar was already a luxury perfume. 20+ natural ingredients bolstering the creamy blue lily’s narcotic effect. It’s a sensual fragrance with carnal appeal exactly because that’s what blue lotus in bed with frangipani does to a smell.

When you then add 3.6 grams more blue lotus in a 30 ml bottle, you already have a pricey tincture right there. But it’s only the beginning of the story.

How do you make Blue Kalbar bluer?

I don’t think you can. But what you can do is add another fat layer of blue. And this time it’s the blue oceanic cool of Oud Royale: Philippines – the smooth, aged Filipino distillation – on top of the compound.

Since Blue Kalbar forms the base of Mystical Lotus, you get all the orange blossom, Ambra ’92, civet, and Green Papua that was in the original by default. Man, I want to stop wiring and go take a spritz…

— It’s not that you get double the blue lotus on top of the existing dose, and that the whole perfume then goes deep diving in the Philippines. It’s what comes next that’s nuts.

Add 1.5 grams of Royal Ta’ifi.

Then add .6 gram of Maroke SQ.

Then add .6 gram of Mélange Priveé SQ.

Then get them all high on SQ’s ancient ambergris.

There’s method to this madness. Maroke SQ and Mélange Priveé SQ are the perfect duo on their own and I can’t think of a superior combo to join with Pinoy LTD’s pristine herbascious blue sultry cool if you want to capture the juicy facets of the melange against the deep incense profile of vintage Maroke (i.e. the smell of Oud Royale No 1).

And Royal Ta’ifi added to the ruh gulab already in BK is what makes all those ouds so diffusive – it’s why the finest old-school mukhallats are just that: rose and oud. All the while, the blue feels the sandy breeze, that oceanic, stony-pebble scent of excellent ambergris.

I’ve never even made something like this for myself. The compound alone is almost double the concentration of my own ‘Private Blend’. It’s so good it’s become my new private blend, the perfume I’ve personally been using. That’s the magic of these collabs – that these scents are born, given the chance to live, and that you can now own a bottle yourself.

The most exquisite flowers – blue lotus, rose, frangipani, and orange blossom drinking gallons of vintage sinking-grade ouds from a royal treasury that is now officially shut. Mystical Lotus is a heady, insanely dense, rich and extravagant to the point where cost was never a factor. The only thing that prevented Abhishek and me from doing more was that you’d end up with an attar too thick to spray.

Mystical Lotus is not a casual spray. This scent dresses you in a totally different kind of style. It’s the kind of perfume that goes with a stylish blue croc leather suitcase and an elegant snakeskin jacket.…………