The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Samarkand takes its name from the Uzbek city that sat at the crossroads of the Silk Road for centuries, a place where sandalwood, oud, rose, and tea crossed paths with merchants from every direction. Dawn Spencer Hurwitz composed this 2021 release as a scented sketch of that intersection, drawing on sandalwood, oud, and rose as anchoring materials that carry the composition's weight. Tea runs through all of them like a thread, weaving the three pillars into a single coherent statement. The formula reads as a direct conversation with centuries-old perfumery, where resinous oud meets creamy Mysore-style sandalwood and the sweetness of rose otto bridges them both.
What makes the formula interesting is the tea layering. Three tea materials appear: green tea absolute in the opening, black tea and lapsang souchong in the heart. The lapsang souchong is the wildcard, a smoked tea that adds a tarry, bonfire quality rarely seen in rose-oud compositions. Hurwitz also reaches for Mitti attar, a traditional Indian material distilled from baked earth, which grounds the floral heart with something mineral and dry. The rose alone is a stack: Damask rose absolute, Bulgarian rose otto, Turkish rose otto, and Rosa centifolia absolute. No single one leads. They braid.
The evolution
Opening bright and crisp with bitter orange, bergamot, Egyptian neroli, apricot, and a dry green tea absolute that threads through the top accord from the very first spray, the scent arrives with an immediate citrus lift tempered by the leafy bitterness of tea. The apricot contributes a soft, golden fruitiness right at the start, warming the sharpness of the orange and neroli without ever turning syrupy. As the top notes settle, the composition shifts toward a heart where sandalwood, rose, and oud begin to surface, each lending its own character: the sandalwood creamy and resonant, the rose honeyed and slightly spicy, the oud resinous and darkly animalic. The green tea absolute persists beneath them, lending a dry, contemplative quality that keeps the heavier materials from feeling closed or dense.
Cultural impact
Samarkand by DSH Perfumes draws its soul from the ancient Silk Road city that served as a crossroads between East and West, a place where goods, ideas, and raw materials traveled for centuries along trade routes that connected China, Persia, India, and the Mediterranean. The apricot note carries particular resonance in this context, evoking the fruit that has long been cultivated across Central Asia and traded along these same caravan paths, its golden sweetness a familiar presence in the markets and orchards of the region.
