I confess. I’ve never owned a bottle of perfume. I don’t even wear deodorant.
It therefore goes without saying that I’m not the kind of girl who can tell a bottle of Chanel apart from a bottle of Calvin Klein. I just don’t really care about that stuff. However, this all changed when I went to Amman and uncovered the true artistry of perfume making.
Strolling through downtown Amman and passing by shops selling spices and stalls cooking up fresh, aromatic lamb, I couldn’t help but notice the surprisingly vast number of perfume shops.
Perhaps you could say I was enticed by the scent. Whatever it was, I found myself standing in a perfume shop and staring at the vast amount of glass perfume bottles containing a variety of coloured liquids.
While my friends were excited to get some cheap perfume (forget about Duty Free!), I was initially just a by-stander, having no intention to buying one for myself. However, none of us expected to experience a unique shopping and cultural experience.
Customising your own perfume
It wasn’t the typical looking boudoir that you might envisage a perfumery to look like. There was no dim lighting and shelves decorated with little bottles of all shapes and sizes labelled in calligraphic writing.
Instead, the place was brightly lit with clear same-sized glass bottles, clearly labelled in Arabic. As we walked in, a young gentleman welcomed us with a big smile and said, “Whatever smell you want, I make it for you”.
We didn’t really understand the meaning of this statement. I think we all must have yielded a kind of perplexed look over our faces because he reached under his counter and brought up a booklet. He opened it up and handed it to us.
Inside the booklet were hundreds of different perfume brands and a brief description about their scent, many of them unknown to me. However, judging by my friend’s reaction, some sought-after and expensive brands must have appeared because they were getting rather excited.
I obviously recognised the big names likes Dior, Armani and Hugo Boss. Though the more specialist perfumes went straight over my head. Outside of the fashion houses, I can’t tell you one brand purely dedicated to the art of coining the perfect aroma.
To tell you truth, I was just interested in whether or not he could actually give us the ‘smells’ we wanted. Could he get the balance right? Would the perfumes pass the test?
The perfect imitation
“So do you mean that you can create the exact smell of any of these perfumes?” My friend dubiously asked the shop assistant.
“Of course! Look see, I show you.”
He turned around and pulled down a few bottles from each shelf. He unplugged their top and inserted a syringe into each of them and injected it into an empty bottle. After that he gave them a mix and shake and then made a noise which probably meant “Voila!”.
It was super cool seeing him extracting different fragrances and placing them into a bottle to create a new, unified fragrance.
After he was finished, he took my friend’s wrist and spritzed the fragrance he had just created.
Passing the smell test
“Whoa it smells exactly like Hugo Boss” said my friend after taking a good whiff of his own wrist.
After our positive response, I think the assistant enjoyed having an audience as he repeated the process with other brands and achieved perfect replicas. We all looked at him as though he were some kind of magician. Entertaining stuff.
He had convince us that he knew what he was doing. We also understood that the imitation was just as good as the original but at a much lower price. What’s not to like?
Final thoughts….
Initially, upon walking into one of these shops, we only expected pre-made perfumes but it turned out to be so much more. We never expected that they’d be making the perfumes themselves.
These guys really should think about insuring their noses. Without their phenomenal sense of smell they wouldn’t be able to carry out their jobs.
And as for me, I bought my first little bottle of perfume. I didn’t ask for a ‘Channel no.5’ or a ‘YSL Opium’, I simply asked him to make something he thought would suit me.
I’ve never had what people call their ‘signature scent’, but I guess now I do. Supposedly, smell is connected to the part of the brain that deals with memory, and that’s the best thing about this perfume. It reminds me of the time I spend in Jordan’s intoxicating capital city.
Additional Jordan travel blogs
- How to Spend One Week in Jordan – Travel Itinerary
- Petra’s One Mile Wonder: From the Siq to the Treasury
- Floating in the Dead Sea
- Amman: I Grew to Love You But You Didn’t Make it Easy
- Adventure Through Little Petra and Beyond
6 responses
This looks fun.How clever of them to be able to match the scent. I’ll definitely check it our when I’m in Amman!
£3 a purchase! Have fun exploring Amman Jenny!
I’d love to do this! Do you remember what it was called or where it was?
Does the smell last or just wear off quickly.
Hi, can you tell us where this is in Amman? I’d love to go there as I am visiting Amman in few weeks. Thanks so much!
Hi Nic, unfortunately it has been quite a few years since I visited and I’ve since lost the information. However, I can tell you that there were quite a few of things perfumery shops in downtown Amman, so you should spot one whilst you’re sightseeing. Good luck!