Kemi / Al Kimiya
Kemi / Al Kimiya
83 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The first fifteen minutes explode with a sharp, almost peppery brightness—ginger and lemon cut through lavender with surgical precision, whilst bergamot adds citrus snap rather than sweetness. It's deliberately austere, almost confrontational, with the elemi resin already suggesting something resinous and woody lurking beneath the surface.
As the top notes recede (and they recede quickly), cashmere wood emerges like something warming from the inside out, developing a creamy, almost skin-like quality that contrasts starkly with the smoky, earthy cypriol. The rose and jasmine refuse to bloom conventionally; instead, they're shadowed by gurjum balsam's honeyed, almost sickly sweetness, creating an unsettling beauty that feels neither wholly floral nor wholly gourmand.
Oud and sandalwood dominate the final hours, constructing a base of remarkable stickiness and depth—the amber and musk add warmth whilst patchouli and vetiver ground everything in dark earth. What remains is less a fragrance than a skin-scent that smells like expensive, slightly animalic wood, persistent and deeply present.
Tempest Kemi is a fragrance that refuses to whisper. This is a perfume extract that announces itself with the authority of someone who knows exactly what they are, structured around a masterclass in woody-spicy interplay that feels almost architectural in its precision.
The opening volley—lavender, bergamot, and petitgrain—creates a bright, almost medicinal counterpoint to the ginger and lemon that prowl underneath, creating immediate tension. But this isn't a fresh fragrance pretending at depth. Instead, those citrus notes exist primarily to define the edges of what's coming: the elemi resin acts as a resinous mortar, binding the top notes to the oud-heavy structure below.
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4.1/5 (487)