Dzongkha L'Artisan Parfumeur 2006

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7.4 / 10 255 Ratings

Dzongkha is a perfume by L'Artisan Parfumeur for women and men and was released in 2006. The scent is woody-leathery. The longevity is above-average. It is being marketed by Puig. Pronunciation

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Perfumer

Bertrand Duchaufour

Fragrance Notes

Top Notes	Cardamom, Lychee, Peony
Heart Notes	Vetiver, Frankincense, Masala chai
Base Notes	Iris, Leather, Papyrus

Ratings

Scent

7.4 | 255 Ratings

Longevity

8.0 | 191 Ratings

Sillage

6.5 | 170 Ratings

Bottle

8.1 | 158 Ratings

Submitted by DonVanVliet, last update on 15.01.2021.

Interesting Facts

Dzongkha is the national language of Bhutan.

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Reviews

Sherapop 9 years ago

„A Heady Leather-Incense Mix”

What happens when you mix leather, incense, and oil-soluble spices such as cardamom, along with a few assorted woody elements and flower petals? Answer:...

WRoth 7 years ago

„Dzongkha”

Opens with a blend of iris and tea (with milk). The iris root is the prefect match for the underlying accord, as it is both green (like the tea) and smooth (like the milk)....

08/10/2020

9.5
Scent 8
Longevity 8
Sillage 8
Bottle

Carboytony
114 Reviews

Carboytony

An Iris for those who normally cannot wear it

I'm not normally one for Iris scents, they don't fit well with my skin chemistry. This is an exception, the leather accord slays some of the misbehaviors of the Iris.

On my skin, it's definitely leather (suede to my nose) and Iris heavy, and it's a beautiful match. Sweet and floral lychee as well as peony come into focus, lightly, every now and then. An Eastern Incense smokily floats in the background, with hints of spiced chai - nuances of cardamom. Papyrus and vetiver, sharp and grassy escort you to the dregs of this fragrance.

Duchaufour is one of my, if not my favorite perfumer.

04/15/2020

8.5
Scent 8
Longevity 7
Sillage 8
Bottle

Vrabec

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Vrabec

Top Review 13

En Voyage chez l'Artisan Parfumeur: 2 Dzonghka - the wood lacquer painter at the village market.

If you look into the house of L'Artisan Parfumeur you will inevitably come across Dzonghka. Especially because comparisons are often made to his better known brother "Timbuktu", which I reviewed in my last commentary. It's a bit of a pity, because Dzonghka is quite a fragrance in its own right, which puts something like this in the shade In order to show his uniqueness I will refer him here from time to time to Timbuktu and delimit it.

Dzonghka is the official language of Bhutan, a monarchy bordering India and Tibet. I have neither experience nor associations with this part of the world, so I will not be able to relate the smell to the name
The start is quite oriental. Vetiver plays along like in Timbuktu, but is accompanied by a lot of smoke and tea. A prominent fruity note is also formed here, with slushy parts, but a crisp lychee can be identified as the cause. Looks much more playful to me than Timbuktu's mango. And this is important, because Dzonghka is lively, versatile but also ponderous; this becomes clear in the following course, a light lychee is good for that. I am also grateful for the rose, which is really rare for me.
Because after the drydown Dzonghka is hard for me to grab. Especially this note of wood varnish makes it difficult for me. Never before smelled in a perfume, I admit submissively that I like it. (Maybe that's what Annarosalein smelled a few comments below? ;) ) At the beginning quite heavy, almost reminiscent of dried cow dung, it fortunately becomes lighter, fresher, towards light leather as it progresses. Essentially, I see the biggest difference in character here, Timbuktu's muddy sweetness versus Dzongkha's wood varnish chord. That and its enormous versatility;
Sometimes it looks powdery, sometimes oily. Sometimes juicy bitter green. Sometimes I smell cotton-soft vetiver, sometimes dusty, cobweb-covered attic Sometimes glucose, sometimes dry spices with slightly glowing charcoal. The whole thing reminds one of a lively, untidy, colourful village bazaar. And yet it is, like a mirage, Timbuktu which I perceive veiled after a few hours. It is and always will be the same DNA of two brothers, whereby I assign Timbuktu to the intellectual, reserved gentleman and Dzonghka to the fragile, impulsive bon vivant. If one of them likes either of them, the other one should definitely be tested.

Dzonghka can be worn all year round, I think. In winter he might be a bit weak. In warmer temperatures he shows himself without being pushy. Also the durability of 8 hours is ok for me.

Thank you for reading my comment.

9 Replies

03/01/2019

7.5
Scent 7
Longevity 5
Sillage 8
Bottle

DonJuanDeCat

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DonJuanDeCat

Very helpful Review 7

Dzongkha is not Dzing!

Good evening people!
Welcome to a new commentary from me, today on Dzongkha by L'Artisan. Yes, correctly read, a fragrance with a somewhat unusual name, where you have to look twice to be able to pronounce it to some extent.

There will come back memories of Dzing!, also by L'Artisan, whom I had described a long time ago (and who had talked a lot of stupid things in the commentary :D). But I couldn't get much started with Dzing! by name either, so no wonder that my commi had so much nonsense talk at that time, he he.

And when you now see or read Dzongkha, then similar thoughts come to mind and you ask yourself, "What in the whole world is Dzongkha supposed to mean? Is it something similar to the Chinese junk, for example, a boat, because it sounds a bit like it? No, not exactly. However, the term Dzongkha actually exists in the Asian region. Dzongkha is the official language of the Kingdom of Bhutan, which lies on the north-eastern border of India. L'Artisan was inspired by this country to create this fragrance here, especially through the beautiful temples of the country, so the fragrance is also said to smell of fragrances such as frankincense, chai tea and spices. What you actually get to smell of it now, well, we'll see right away!

The fragrance:

The fragrance begins with general spices, which I cannot yet identify, then comes cardamom, which gives off its green-herbal scent, and vetiver, which conjures up an earthy scent. I can't smell the lychees and peonies mentioned in the top note, although a rosy scent appears, but only later and still quite weakly scented.
The cardamom quickly loses its strength and the spices also lose a little bit of their strength when the fragrance changes to a heart note. Here you can smell the vetiver best, in the background there is iris, whereas here with this scent the iris seems less powdery to me, but instead somehow buttery. Chai tea is also available, but unfortunately so weak that you can't perceive the scent in the scent cloud, but have to flatten your nose at the sprayed place to smell a little Chai. Whereby the Chai smells like normal tea to me, not like Chai but more like a mix of black and white tea.
Frankincense takes a lot of time to emerge, but is added to the base. Towards the end, the fragrance is soft and creamy, the spicy notes are weaker, and it now smells of light incense, iris, vetiver and now also a little leather, where the softer and creamier notes but the leather smells like suede. By the way, the tea doesn't get stronger later *sigh*, by the way, but still a nice scent.

The Sillage and the shelf life:

The Sillage is simply mediocre, neither strong nor really weak, even if it quickly loses its strength and is therefore best to smell from close up. The shelf life I would say is six to seven hours, probably it lasts a bit longer, but as I said it's very weak for the later hours.

The bottle:

The bottle is heptagonal and has black areas or accents instead of being completely clear as before. The lid is also heptagonal and also black, and thus no longer golden as before. On the front a vertical label can be seen, on which the name of the fragrance can be seen on a white background. All in all, it was done quite nicely, but somehow I found the earlier flacons a bit more beautiful.

So that was the scent. I already liked it. It's not a scent I should have had, but I found it quite nice and it belongs at least to the scents I would use as a gift instead of passing it on :D

It is a day scent, loose, rather delicate and gentle and no firecracker. Despite a sillage, which is okay at the beginning, the scent gets weaker quickly, so that it can be smelled more by yourself, so it's also great for all occasions, where you don't want to get on other people's nerves with intense scents, for example at work or something, because I don't think you'll be noticed very much. It can also be used as an all-rounder, but it probably works best in spring and summer.

As far as the subject matter is concerned, one could say that L'Artisan has already achieved what they also wanted, namely to create a fragrance that reminds us of temples and Buddhism, although incense and chai could have been stronger. But still the scent has a little bit of something cool and stony about it, which can remind you (with a little bit of imagination) of the stone courtyards of temples.

A test can be worthwhile, but is not an absolute must. And now I come to the end and wish you, as usual, a nice evening :)

1 Replies

12/13/2018

3
Scent 7
Longevity 7
Sillage 5
Bottle

Hasiputz80

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Hasiputz80

no blind purchase candidate and no candidate for surprise gifts either....

This fragrance, if you can call it that at all, has the most disgusting, disgusting fragrance composition I have ever noticed on any perfume.

All the praising comments of my previous commentators I cannot understand at all. It's not like I only like cotton candy fragrances a' la LVEB.
The beauty of a "By The Fireplace" or M7 is quite open to me. And even if I wouldn't wear them, I can understand why they have their followers.

I tried Dzongkha for the first time about 2 years ago. Several further attempts followed. Every time disgust and disgust, I can't describe it any other way.

And today when I was cleaning up the sample fell into my hands again. I learned from my previous attempts, and so he was only allowed on a handkerchief.

There are fragrance combinations for me like orange blossom, in combination with violets, or tuberose with orange blossom which are simply too sweet, too much and simply too much of everything for me. And yet no creation has yet managed to cause such nausea in me.

Don't let your nose get too close to the handkerchief, every inch could be too much ....it is and remains disgusting!!! (to all lovers sorry, and he is not tilted!)
The fragrance pyramid reads so beautifully, but is purely fictitious. I like cardamom, lychee, peony and also incense and leather I am not averse to. Everything sounds nice, but you can safely forget it.
All I smell is a medical, nasty smell that I don't want to notice either on myself or on people around me.

4 Replies

11/19/2018

8
Scent 8
Longevity 6
Sillage 10
Bottle

Annarosa

Translated Show original

Annarosa

Helpful Review 5

The story of a strong beef soup at the campfire

Dzhongkha is a fascinating scent. In 2016 I had gotten hold of an old pretty bottle with the golden tree at TKMaxx and for a while I wore it very often in the autumn-winter spring months until I gave it away, which I still feel sorry for, although I know that this is not my scent.
From the bottle, the fragrance smells wonderfully powerful and sparkling, herbaceous, incense, different and totally fascinating. But as soon as it has been applied to my skin and sprayed on my hair, the fragrance loses all its powerful tangyness and turns into the smell of a strong beef broth with soup vegetables inside. The image I have in mind is: an evening autumn forest, the campfire, on which a pot of beef broth is simmering. The idea itself is not unromantic, but hardly any of my fellow men see this forest. All she smells, and ultimately I smell too, is a banal kitchen smell. A smell I get for free when I cook soup in my clothes and hair. A very sober conclusion and very very very sad.

3 Replies

10/02/2018

7
Scent 8
Longevity

Kafumi

Translated Show original

Kafumi

Very helpful Review 3

Cardamom bomb

What a top note! Totally took me by surprise. I won a test in a newsletter raffle from Verbeene and did a blind tasting, so to speak, without reading anything to myself beforehand. Sprayed on my arm when the test sample and suddenly cardamom with resin and decent fruit explodes in my face. I am totally enthusiastic about this excess of spice, but at the same time I wonder if I want to smell like this, because it already has a certain eccentricity. But what soon follows is a clear weakening of the overall package, whereby the cardamom still remains in the foreground and the woodiness gains some space. I can't smell Chai here (for me a mixture of cloves, cinnamon and cardamom), but really very dominant only the one spice.
The papyrus note that is called can be guessed with a lot of imagination. For me rather a noble soapiness in the base with light resin. In any case, the "volume" decreases significantly. The final is very solid and quiet in contrast to the loud opening.

Conclusion:
Really gorgeous opening, which doesn't go bad later, but the scent doesn't keep up its magic for me. Scratches my palate easily when I smell it.

2 Replies

02/06/2016

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

Great!

I’ve never been a fan of L’Artisan fragrances, let alone the uncontrollably prolific Bertrandingo. But one thing I’ve to admit – in the extremely seldom circumstances where they both work at their best, with decent budgets and some solid inspiration, the results are great. And this is definitely the case. This is easily one of the best woody-iris scents on the market, brilliantly succeeding in blending the utmost versatility and wearability with a tremendous level of creativity and quality. Basically I agree with the reviews (including Luca Turin’s one in his Guide) which connect Dzonghka to Timbuktu, as this is indeed basically Timbuktu with iris, which is amazingly blended within that peculiar sort of transparent cypress-woody and subtly leathery structure adding a powdery, rooty, dry and earthy-waxy texture which fits it just perfectly. It’s like to smell the smoky, greenish, autumnal “papery” woodiness of Timbuktu shyly blossoming in early March. Not a “floral triumph”, just some faint, pastel, still quite dark accent of rooty-floral notes rising from the soil, soon joined by a subtle, warm tea note. This is pretty much of Dzonghka smells, and it’s just achieved perfectly. It’s graceful, elegant, natural, breezy yet very cozy: no cheap musks, no plastic iris. The concept is simple, the execution is clever and well mastered. Just some genuine, palpably realistic sprinkle of orris powder on smoky woods with a “mineral” salty aftertaste and a slighty touch of sweetness which will grow in strenght on the (impeccable) drydown. It’s poetic, complex yet quite straightforward, masterfully executed keeping Timbuktu’s great ability of smelling “airy” but totally substantial. And it smells fantastic anyway. Heart-warmingly austere and very classy. Plus, finally a decently-projecting, decently persistent L’Artisan, for God’s sake. Recommended!

8-8,5/10

07/05/2014

10
Scent 7.5
Longevity 7.5
Sillage 10
Bottle

ChapeauClack
16 Reviews

ChapeauClack

Very helpful Review 7

To the introvert who favors tannic wines

I recently found myself comparing some of my summer fragrances to my favorite (or not so favorite, I'm smirking at you, Lambrusco!) wines. Turns out, I favor the same qualities in both. This string of comparative thought started in fact with Dzongkha, which I first tried a year ago today, in the sweltering heat of Beijing summer.

Dzongkha turned out to be one of those magical potions which, however much one reads about beforehand, are still pretty much impossible to be fully prepared for. The very idea of trying and describing what it actually smells like is... well, futile, due to the sheer lack of common denominators. It's herbal, but those are not your usual cooking herbs and they do not render the fragrance aromatic. Spicy, but its spices do not make it an oriental. It smells disturbingly natural, but it's not the nature one experiences by simply taking a stroll through the woods. And above all, it is dry. Dry, dry and... tannic. And just like those very dry, very tannic white wines that are almost green and make one's whole mouth feel fuzzy, it is the perfect thirst quencher.

The back story that comes with this fragrance does provide a good starting point against which to calibrate one's nose and brain for the Dzongkha experience. Think century-old trees clutching at the mountain slopes, imagine the sun-baked stones and clay structures that have been exposed to the elements for what seems like forever; feel the wind gently ruffling the wild grasses that grow in a place where none of us is likely to ever set foot, and hear it carry over a distant chant and a sound of the gong. Dzongkha reveals a mesmerizing landscape that somehow manages to shield its wearer from the rumble of the outside world and turn one's gaze inward, to a happy place within.

Given all that, it's probably a safe bet that Dzongkha is not much of a compliment getter or attractant, and as such it's not very well suited for extroverts. However, if you, like me, crave solitude more often than not, it might just happen to become your magic OFF button on the world.

2 Replies

05/04/2014

3
Scent 5
Longevity 2.5
Sillage 5
Bottle

WRoth
153 Reviews

WRoth

Dzongkha

Opens with a blend of iris and tea (with milk). The iris root is the prefect match for the underlying accord, as it is both green (like the tea) and smooth (like the milk). Vetiver and cypriol form a sheath enveloping the two head notes with their salty-green and peppery-rooty nuances . A fresh floral accent - undoubtedly the peony - lightens and brightens the composition, it adds a dewy-sweet facet (lychee maybe playing a part in this) to the blend. This fragrance is cool and greenish, but also slightly spicy and smoky (cardamom and incense) in a vague, watercolor-like manner. It reminds me of Hermes' Paprika Brazil, only this scent is lighter and less spicy. As the notes develop and the flowers and grasses burn out, the fragrances becomes drier, but remains its pleasant coolness. I now see mainly vetiver-cedar blended together and a remnant of iris. The cold incense note adds a smooth, vaguely metallic finish to the accord which makes me think of of Timbuktu the more the scent progresses towards the dry down.

11/02/2013

3
Scent 7.5
Longevity 7.5
Sillage 10
Bottle

Tar
261 Reviews

Tar

Brutal concept

Body chemistry is the most important thing, what we have to underline, when it comes to Bertrand Duchaufour's creation.
We tested this fragrance together with my sister, so actually I have two reviews to write.

The one of her:
Dusty fern + bark ===> bark in the forest, burnt up together with green, immature strobile ===> paprika seed.

Mine:
Powdery rouge + buttery, unpleasing paprika seed (does not change).

I am glad to read other opinions from people, who has a body chemistry working well with DZONGKHA. Anyway, I recommend to sample this fragrance only to experienced perfume-lovers.

Show all reviews (12)