Aksoum by Reine de Saba: The Fruit of Love
Fragrance Reviews

by Andrei Lensky
04/20/23 14:38:02 ( 12 comments )

After Esxence 2023, many Fragrantica authors noted a troubling trend: fly-by-night perfume brands are becoming increasingly prominent on the market. They offer compositions that have no artistic value but only aim to maximize profits at the lowest cost possible; consumers increasingly receive endless copies of commercially successful compositions; perfume ceases to be an original statement, it ceases to be art. However, it is not all doom and gloom. Today, there are still brands whose beauty and depth are admirable. Reine de Saba is an excellent example of such a brand.
 

Reine de Saba bottles
 

Reine de Saba is one of the most exciting discoveries of the year. There are many things to admire about this brand. It has a thoughtful, intelligent concept, luxurious visual design, and gorgeous fragrances.

My acquaintance with Reine de Saba was gradual: from observing the brand's aesthetic after Igor's interview, followed by my own interview with perfumery historian Annick Le Guérer, who participated in creating the brand concept, to the long-awaited meeting with the fragrances, which happened only recently, after months of waiting.
 

From left to right: Lionel Paillès, Dominique Ropion, Habib Al-Sowaidi 

The brand creator, Habib Al-Sowaidi, has dedicated his entire life to perfumery. It took Habib almost 30 years to create his own brand, but his long journey only benefitted the realization of his ideas in the grandiose perfume project. To create Reine de Saba fragrances, Habib invited the world's most renowned perfumers: Dominique Ropion, Sophie Labbé, Nathalie Lorson, Alberto Morillas, Michel Almairac, Maurice Roucel, Bruno Jovanovic, Olivier Cresp, Anne Flipo, and Carlos Benaim. In the near future, the brand will introduce fragrances from other admired perfumers.

The design of the bottles was made based on sketches by Serge Mansau. When I first took a Reine de Saba bottle into my hands, I experienced a deep aesthetic delight: high-quality glass produced in the Italian factory Luigi Bormioli, and a gold cap, handmade of zamak alloy - whether it is a cornucopia or a lush headdress of the Queen of Sheba herself, fashioned from fabulous flowers and fruits.
 

A fragment of the Reine de Saba bottlecap

Reine de Saba is genuine luxury without a hint of vulgarity. Luxury like this doesn't cover itself in sequins, hiding its emptiness behind tawdry embellishments. No, Reine de Saba eloquently tells its story through quality perfume compositions and exquisite designs, which testify to its creator's excellent taste and sense of proportion. Perhaps I myself sin against proportion with such a complementary passage, but in the case of Reine de Saba, I sin absolutely sincerely.

The brand's aesthetics are European, but you can easily discern fine oriental features in its appearance. Reine de Saba is a dream of the fairytale East inspired by the image of the enigmatic Queen of Sheba, but it's also Habib's insightful story about his homeland, Yemen.

The brand's fragrances draw inspiration from the natural and cultural richness of the Yemeni land, where you can find the world's best incense, taste the beautiful fruit of blooming gardens and catch the mysterious spirit of Saba's ancient history, which hovers in the hot desert air. There, myth mingles with truth, and ancient cities hold King Solomon's secrets...
 

Barran Temple, Yemen
 

I have tried all the fragrances of the brand, and I can confidently say that each one deserves its own review. Among all Reine de Saba fragrances, I was most interested in Aksoum by Dominique Ropion: I am a big fan of white-floral bouquets composed by this perfumer. It's enough to remember the lush Amarige by Givenchy, the cosmic Alien by Mugler, or the green Carnal Flower by Frederic Malle to realize his mastery of this perfume genre. In contrast to the other fragrances of the line, Aksoum stands out with its unusual pyramid: it has no incense, oud, or leather, but only white flowers, fresh greens, citrus, and soft musks - Dominique Ropion at his best!

Aksoum

2022

Perfumer: Dominique Ropion

Top notes: bergamot, petitgrain, neroli.

Heart notes: Egyptian jasmine, tuberose, orange blossom.

Base notes: sandalwood, patchouli, musk

Aksoum takes its name from the ancient city of Axum and the kingdom of the same name, the closest neighbor of the Sabaean Kingdom. The Kingdom of Aksum was located in the territory of modern Ethiopia and Eritrea. In ancient times, it was a trade hub between India, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, and Rome.

The relationship between the Axum and Sabaean kingdoms was very close and multifaceted. Only the narrow Red Sea separated the two states, which could be crossed by ship in a few hours. Besides economic and political ties, the two kingdoms were united by the legend of the mysterious Queen of Sheba.
 

The Visit Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, Edward John Poynter, 1890

The legend says that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a child, the fruit of their passionate love. His name was Menelik. Besides being a king's son, he was also his firstborn. There is no mention of this story in the Bible; however, this ancient legend is preserved in the Ethiopian book called "Kabra Negast" or "The Glory of the Kings," according to which many Ethiopian rulers were descendants of Menelik, and thus also of King Solomon himself and the legendary queen. The Solomonic dynasty ruled Ethiopia until 1974.
 

Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon, illustrations from the book of Kabra Negast

Be that as it may, the first copies of the book "Kabra Negast" date back only to the 14th century, the period of the same Solomonic dynasty that came to power in Ethiopia at the end of the 13th century. Some people believe the book was a tool of internal political struggle: it was supposed to confirm the legitimacy of the new dynasty that had overthrown the Zagwe dynasty, which had ruled Ethiopia for three centuries.

Whatever the reality, Menelik I's legend is charming in its naivete. Nine months and five days after her remarkable visit to Solomon, the Queen of Sheba gave birth to a son she unequivocally named "Son of the Wise." When Menelik grew older, he presented himself to his father. Solomon received his son and, as his firstborn, gave him the legendary Ark of the Covenant. The happy young man took the Ark to Ethiopia. Solomon is said to have searched for it for a very long time in the following years. According to tradition, the Ark of the Covenant is still stored in Axum, the church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.
 

The Church of Our Lady Mary of Sion in Axum, which is believed to contain the Ark of the Covenant

The legend raises two questions: why did the Queen of Sheba (i.e., the queen of the Kingdom of Sheba) become the queen of Ethiopia (Axum), and how did King Solomon so easily pass the main shrine of Jerusalem's Temple to his illegitimate son? One thing is clear - King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba are intriguing and fascinating. Tracing your ancestry back to them means to "embed" yourself in the world's history and surround yourself with a halo of mystery and power. Now, let's talk about the fragrance.
 

Simien National Park, northern Ethiopia

Aksoum is mysterious. Its first impression is deceptive: it seems to be a pure white flower and aldehyde fragrance devoid of fleshiness. The white flowers here are their pure whiteness. The bergamot and petitgrain are the peel's tartness and the leaves' bitterness. There is no rapture of the senses here, no exuberance, which I expect from a Dominique Ropion creation. It's a clear, cool space, as if you are standing in the evening on the shore of the Red Sea among lifeless cliffs. You are staring at the horizon line, trying to discern the indistinct features of the land of Saba on the opposite shore. A cool breeze brings freshness along with the mineral smell of the sea. Aksoum appears to praise the cold beauty of inanimate matter: it has no green tint of seaweed, no scent of coastal plants, but bare rocks and smooth boulders...

But here, just by the water, you see snags thrown on the shore. Somehow snow-white flowers grow in their salted flesh: small, vulnerable, fragile. These flowers have no name, and there is no place for them here either: their life on the dead snag contradicts nature's laws, but they still bloom and exude an enchanting aroma... This aroma seems to reflect and transform the lifeless nature - there is a mineral freshness, but in its core, there is the hidden slightly smoky aroma of tuberose and jasmine. There is also the smell of wet sea snags, but in it, one can discern the green, tart scent of sap that used to fill the tree...

These flowers are a gift from heaven: within them, there is the power of life, creating and transforming; in their subtle smell, one can sense spring, carrying the aroma of blooming gardens and lush greenery. These heavenly flowers take the decrepit and dead and make them alive and eternally young.

Aksoum is one of Dominique Ropion's exceptional works. In the interview, the perfumer called the fragrance "the fruit of love." I fully recognize that the perfume, whose name clearly refers to the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba's son, received this epithet from its creator. Aksoum is a coherent, well-thought-out, multifaceted fragrance without a single superfluous detail or flaw. It is perfect. It is whole. It is as beautiful as the elusive aroma of the snow-white flowers blooming in the Garden of Eden.