OnyxAmber Floral Eau de Parfum

Onyx by Al Jazeera Perfumes is an amber floral woody eau de parfum, unisex, launched in 2016. It takes its name from an opaque black stone, and plays exactly on this contrast: a full rose, set on a dark and resinous background.

A Qatari house whose every bottle bears the mention "Paris"

Al Jazeera Perfumes was born in Doha in 1998, and opened in 2002 the city's first boutique of rare perfumes. The word Paris inscribed on its bottles is not decorative: the house has worked from the beginning with the greatest French manufacturers of perfumery raw materials and entrusts its compositions to French perfumers. Onyx belongs to the part of the catalog where Al Jazeera uses its rarest materials, starting with its house oud oil, Oud Al Jazeera Special, reserved for a handful of references.

An opening of Bulgarian rose

The Bulgarian rose opens alone, without citrus to lighten it. It is a distillation rose, dense, slightly honeyed, fleshier than the Taif rose. It immediately sets the register of the perfume: neither fresh nor transparent, but full and immediately recognizable.

A heart of lily and walnut

The lily extends the rose towards the white floral, a bit powdery, while the walnut — a rare material in perfumery — brings a fatty bitterness, almost woody, which prevents the bouquet from turning sweet. It is this walnut that gives Onyx its particular texture, this impression of a flower wrapped in a shell.

A base of sandalwood, ambergris and oud

The creamy sandalwood, the mineral and salty ambergris and the oud form a deep base that the vanilla comes to round off without really softening it. The trail remains long and dark, in the spirit of Gulf perfumery.

The house's signature

Onyx rests on a figure of speech: the rose is never softened, it is darkened. Where European perfumery generally accompanies the rose with red fruits or lychee, Al Jazeera confronts it with walnut and oud. It is this choice that has made Onyx one of the most sought-after references of the house outside the Gulf.

For whom, for what occasions?

For those looking for a rose of character, neither conventionally feminine nor polite. Its longevity and sillage make it an evening, autumn and winter perfume, to be dosed with measure. Two sprays are enough.

With Onyx, Al Jazeera Perfumes signs one of the most readable rose-oud accords in its catalog, and one of the best entry points into the house.