Review of Rifaaqat by Yaroslavna Lasytsya

Rifaaqat unfolds as an olfactory procession, opening with pink and black pepper entwined with elemi, circling the senses with remarkable vigour and uncanny accuracy, as though every molecule had been choreographed rather than blended. No sooner has this spiced overture announced itself than an imperial feel falls, like curtains of saffron-hued haze drawn slowly across a room, carrying with it a languid sweetness that permeates the air and lingers in the folds of fabric long after the wearer has passed. Within this haze, resins and spices are elevated and matched to perfection, each note ceding just enough ground to the other that neither pepper’s sharpness nor saffron’s warmth ever tips into excess — a balance so exact it feels less like formulation and more like fate. It is here that the fragrance casts its true spell: a dream-like state envelops the wearer, an atmosphere of most exquisite splendour and vice, equal parts virtue and temptation, sanctity and seduction. Incense darts through this dreamscape, nearly grazing the skin without ever falling onto it as heavy fumes — a performance of restraint as much as richness, present enough to be felt, never so much as to smother. There is a theatrical intelligence to this movement, incense as gesture rather than weight, curling close to the body and retreating again before it can overstay. To wear it is to feel something almost divine settle over the skin — this could be a demi-god, akin to Aeneas of steady resolve and unquestionable authority, a presence that does not ask to be noticed but simply is, carrying itself with the quiet certainty of one destined for empire rather than merely admired for it. And in that destiny lies the fragrance’s deepest truth: it stands on foundations of the past, drawing from ancient rites of resin and spice long offered to gods and kings, and hearkens the glory of a future it seems entirely certain it will command — sweetness, smoke, and spice bound together not as memory, but as prophecy.