The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Shamanism began with a single night in the Amazon. Jonathan Dufour attended his first shamanic ceremony, sixteen people gathered in a maloka tent, the shaman chanting icaros as the forest pressed close. He wore sandalwood that night. When he returned to Paris, that memory stayed. Not as nostalgia. As material. Philippe Paparella-Paris translated the ritual into structure: bergamot and mandarin opening clean, Bulgarian rose from the brand's known sourcing, myrrh and cypress evoking the ceremony's smoke and resin. The spices, cinnamon, caraway, jasmine, heliotrope, arrived as the heart Dufour remembered from that night. Sandalwood anchors everything. Because that was what he was wearing. That was what the moment smelled like.
The note pyramid here is unusually generous, twenty-one materials across three phases, but the composition earns it. The opening is clean and bright, almost medicinal from the cypress and myrrh. The heart turns warm and complex, with cinnamon at the center surrounded by powdery florals. The drydown is where patience matters: sandalwood and frankincense arrive slowly, then vanilla and tonka bean wrap around them like warmth from a fire already burned down. Bulgarian rose reads more as a whisper than a statement throughout, it threads the phases rather than dominates them.
The evolution
The first thirty minutes are the loudest. Bergamot and mandarin hit sharp, almost aggressive, with cypress and myrrh giving it an almost coniferous, ceremonial quality. The Bulgarian rose tries to appear but gets pulled into the growing warmth. Then, around the forty-minute mark, the cinnamon arrives and everything softens into something wearable. The florals bloom mid-phase: jasmine and lily of the valley under heliotrope's powdery blanket. Cedar appears as a dry, warm wood that steadies the composition. The drydown is the payoff. It takes its time, two to three hours in before sandalwood, frankincense, and vanilla fully arrive. What lingers at hour eight is warm, close, slightly sweet. The oakmoss keeps it grounded in something green. Not fresh. Not clean. Earned.
Cultural impact
Shamanism occupies a specific corner of contemporary niche perfumery: incense-forward compositions with enough sweetness to avoid reading as purely austere. The community rates it 7.7 for scent and 7.5 for longevity, strong numbers for a 2023 release. Wearers gravitating toward incense-heavy fragrances describe it as powerful, with Bulgarian rose providing an unexpected entry point. Comparisons to Comme des Garçons and Byredo appear in forums, houses operating in similar conceptual territory rather than commercial niche.
