Parfumerie Générale - Djhenné

Picture: Great Mosque of Djenné

Photo: Andy Gilham (cc) Wikimedia Commons,

some rights reserved

This year the house of Parfumerie Générale, founded by perfumer Pierre Guillaume, celebrating ten successful years with a fragrance that fills the vacant number 22 in the numberd collection, Djhenné. Maybe the number was left to unite the “2:s” of the founding year respective the year of Jubilee.

Djhenné is a town in Mali, famous for the big mosque constructed by clay in 1907. To me, Djhenné the perfume also smells as I can image the smell of the dry, hot, earth blended with some sand from Sahara mingled with spieces, cacao from the market, and some herbal green whiffs from the scores of the river nearby. According to an interview on Fragrantica Pierres inspiraton to Djhenné was “a fresh accord surrounded by hot sand. Oasis, a lazy hot atmosphere, and a little bit of freshness in a hot desert”

Djhenné starts with sparkling, almost spritzy light spicy notes that mingles with an uplifting green light flowery herbal note, probably the mint and flowers combined. The pepper from cedarwood comes forward in a quite early stage and after a while Djhenné reminds me of some sparkling woody-peppery fragrances for example the bolder L`Eau Guerriere which is bright and luminous but at the same time heavy in it’s notes and therefore has to be applied very sparingly. But after this short phase Djhenné turns to a softer, warmer spicy stage supported by some delicate and almost dry and powdery, sweet notes supported by an almost rounded, strawlike note which mingles and balances with a light resin-sweetness. The last accord is probably highlighten the original wheatnote and the myrrh, but a sort of stripped down, light myrrhm not the dark, warm myrrh of Myrrhiad from one of Pierres other perfumelines, Huitieme Art. In the Fragrantica interview the interviewer find similarties with another beautiful PG fragrance, Bois Naufrage. Even if not quite obvious to me, both have the same relaxing aura and Bois Naufrage is the wet woody version and Djhenné the warm, dry and spicy version of the theme

Except the short, cedar-pepper phase, Djhenné is a very relaxing fragrance with a comfortable dry, warm, light flowery, spicy and well balanced sweetness. It’s easy, but in the same time interesting, to wear as it repeatedly unfolds new discrete twists, especially in it’s later stages. The longevity, despite it’s perceived lightness, is 12h+. Djhenné is a fragrance that grows on me from the initial impression of a good but not especially distinctive fragrance, I can’t stop sniffing my wrists in the later stages of this beautiful and a bit mysterious fragrance that induces such exotic images to me, just as Pierres intention.

Djhenné is perfect for daytime wear year around, and as said above, a fragance for calming down .

Rating: 5

Notes: Mint, seringa, lavendel, cedarwood, cacao pod, myrrh, wheat