01/26/2019
Salered
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Bulgarian fortune teller
Baba Wanga was a famous Bulgarian clairvoyant and fortune-teller. For more than half a century its prophecies captivated the citizens of Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. In the 1980s it was almost impossible to get an appointment with her without special relationships.
In the late eighties communist Bulgaria slowly opened up to the West and so the first perfumes from Bulgaria came to Yugoslavia, where I lived for a while. In the Balkans, Bulgaria was already famous for the production of the famous Bulgarian rose, which today is a component of many precious fragrances. The fragrances were very straightforward: rose and musk, sometimes for a change musk and rose, in order. The perfumes were smuggled in small 10ml atomizers across the strictly controlled border. Sometimes the Bulgarian customs officers turned a blind eye when they were given the latest cassette of the Balkan mega-popular folk singer Lepa Brena. I think you could have smuggled an entire truck through, the singer was so popular there.
After some time we were not so impressed by the scents anymore. One could feel the extremely valuable ingredients in the form of Bulgarian rose and musk (probably artificial), but the inventiveness for combining, mixing and trying out was simply lacking. The scents marched like the soldiers of the Bulgarian People's Army under Eastern Europe's toughest dictator Todor Zhivkov: musk, rose, musk, rose, musk, rose. Today, 30 years later, I immediately think of the strictly composed popular parades in North Korea.
The scents in the Chopard Musk Malaki are as strict as this. Unfortunately the above mentioned components like pepper, cedar wood, leather do not appear. The fragrance starts very fresh, but also creamy. A friend of mine said at the first sniff it reminded him of a wonderful soap. Then the mixture of musk and rose (not mentioned comically in the fragrance composition) unfolds. Even after 7 hours everything smells completely identical to the beginning. The musk rose combination covers everything else.
The bottle is a feast for the eyes. It is the same as Rose Malaki's, which I also own (more about it in the commentary there). The liquid, however, is not as pink as shown here on the title photo. In artificial light it is transparent, in daylight some pin knots shimmer out, but far from what you can see here.
I wonder if Baba Wanga had anticipated that a perfume company called Chopard would release a fragrance in 2017 that would be so reminiscent of the Bulgarian fragrances of the last century. And that the sale would go so badly that it would be taken off the market just one year later. The remaining stock can now be bought in the United Arab Emirates, where musk seems to be more popular than here. This wonderful, short memory of a socialist-communist time now has a firm place in my collection.
In the late eighties communist Bulgaria slowly opened up to the West and so the first perfumes from Bulgaria came to Yugoslavia, where I lived for a while. In the Balkans, Bulgaria was already famous for the production of the famous Bulgarian rose, which today is a component of many precious fragrances. The fragrances were very straightforward: rose and musk, sometimes for a change musk and rose, in order. The perfumes were smuggled in small 10ml atomizers across the strictly controlled border. Sometimes the Bulgarian customs officers turned a blind eye when they were given the latest cassette of the Balkan mega-popular folk singer Lepa Brena. I think you could have smuggled an entire truck through, the singer was so popular there.
After some time we were not so impressed by the scents anymore. One could feel the extremely valuable ingredients in the form of Bulgarian rose and musk (probably artificial), but the inventiveness for combining, mixing and trying out was simply lacking. The scents marched like the soldiers of the Bulgarian People's Army under Eastern Europe's toughest dictator Todor Zhivkov: musk, rose, musk, rose, musk, rose. Today, 30 years later, I immediately think of the strictly composed popular parades in North Korea.
The scents in the Chopard Musk Malaki are as strict as this. Unfortunately the above mentioned components like pepper, cedar wood, leather do not appear. The fragrance starts very fresh, but also creamy. A friend of mine said at the first sniff it reminded him of a wonderful soap. Then the mixture of musk and rose (not mentioned comically in the fragrance composition) unfolds. Even after 7 hours everything smells completely identical to the beginning. The musk rose combination covers everything else.
The bottle is a feast for the eyes. It is the same as Rose Malaki's, which I also own (more about it in the commentary there). The liquid, however, is not as pink as shown here on the title photo. In artificial light it is transparent, in daylight some pin knots shimmer out, but far from what you can see here.
I wonder if Baba Wanga had anticipated that a perfume company called Chopard would release a fragrance in 2017 that would be so reminiscent of the Bulgarian fragrances of the last century. And that the sale would go so badly that it would be taken off the market just one year later. The remaining stock can now be bought in the United Arab Emirates, where musk seems to be more popular than here. This wonderful, short memory of a socialist-communist time now has a firm place in my collection.
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