“O Constantinople! Either you will take me or I will take you.”
Mehmed the Conqueror
Fort & Manlé’s discovery set, so far, has been a very good thing. Their scents are not same-same, but they often have a very similar bone structure. You can tell they are related. This means that if one works for you, the chances are that another very well might. Hence, I’ve come to expect them to smell good, with little trepidation, even ones where a note or two might give me pause.
Enter Fatih Sultan Mehmed, the next one to be tried. It’s got listed notes of bergamot, apple, petitgrain, rose, tulip, iris, vanilla bean, benzoin, amber, ambergris, cedar, patchouli, oud.
But of course, a note list only tells a bit of the story. You see, Rasei Fort aims high. This was named for none other than Mehmed the Conqueror. As the F & M site says:
…A figure unparalleled in the history of military prowess, statecraft and a lover and patron of the arts and sciences. Considered the Greatest of all Sultans.
You know, like, we’ve got a lot of expectations here now. By the way, he conquered Constantinople* at the age of 22. What was I doing at that age? Clearly nothing adequate. Not by a long shot. You?
And he was fond of a nice smell or two, obviously.
My first actual spreadsheet note on this scent: ” I AM IN LOVE. IT MAKES ME WANT TO INVADE CONSTANTINOPLE. IT’S THAT GOOD.”
I might have some unrealistic expectations of what constitutes romance since actual conquest seems to be a thing I would consider therein, but this scent really is quite exquisite on a grand scale.
I mentioned the Fort & Manlé bone structure earlier because it is quite evident here. But this is a very distinctively built scent, unlike even the other F & Ms I’ve tried and loved.
The first (very lovely) note is apple. Fort & Manlé’s fruit notes are truly nice: they tend to the tart rather than the sweet. This is a particularly shining apple. I don’t get much bergamot or petitgrain, except as a complement to the apple. There isn’t a distinct green-citrus note here, merely a spark. As with Harem Rose, we have a flawless, complex Damask rose, mixed with the pale green of tulip and the powder of iris. The entire thing reclines on a sweet bed of amber, vanilla, and benzoin.
A few things that somehow don’t dominate, somewhat to my surprise: oud, cedar, patchouli. In fact, the only one of the woody basenotes that appears distinctly is cedar, and it never overwhelms. But one thing that does appear which made me say, “Ooo! What is that note?”: ambergris. I don’t know if their ambergris is synthesized, but I rather suspect not. I just know this note isn’t something I’ve smelled a lot or at least so distinctly, probably because it’s a scent note that belongs to the past, and which costs dearly now. It’s warm and animalic, like musk, but has an almost buttery salt aspect. There is also a note of soil to it, to which I’m quite partial. A coworker of mine confessed to me that she found the scent of this one strange (not bad, but “strange”) solely because of the “dirt” note she picked up. She seemed to find it unsettling. I also suspect this is the ambergris. Salty, buttery, animalic dirt, yet also sweet.
The longevity of this on me at least is excellent. This is an all-day perfume. Sillage is pretty good (but be aware that this is different enough from most other perfumes that people may, like my coworker, not really know how to take it.) Without a doubt, this scent is a statement, and it is bold. Mehmed, I suspect, would approve.
*(now it’s İstanbul, not Constantinople.)
Maryam Payne, Writer & Editor 