The smell of rain, petrichor, calm and fresh – but not citrus fresh. Think earthy, herbaceous, out by the river.
Oud has notes of petrichor, and certain Papuan ouds especially capture those notes beautifully – but also add to it.
Mitti is just that.
It’s topsoil that’s been baked inside an earthen kiln sealed with earth, which is then hydro-distilled, usually into an oil that forms the base of the attar.
What looks like flatbread rolled from topsoil harvested in India (preferably outside of monsoon season), these clay disks are distilled to literally capture the scent of earth and rain.
Cost depends on the carrier – traditionally, the carrier of choice is sandalwood. Sandalwood’s inherently calming properties mimic, even enhance mitti’s own soothing aroma, acting like an exalting carrier instead of a mute one like you’d get from plain alcohol tinctures.
But there’s something you can do to make mitti even more primal…
Add musk to the attar, and it’s like you made the earthy profile even more so – plus, musk glazes the rainy soil scent with a sweetened aroma that makes wearing the infusion more addictive.
But we didn’t just add musk to mitti.
To make Musk Mitti meant I painstakingly boiled raw Tibetan musk pods inside the mitti itself – non-stop – for months. So, you’re not getting a whiff of musk from the mitti, like you’d expect had you just added some grains. Musk Mitti is a total infusion. As if those ancient musk grains had been crushed into the soil and baked together, the mitti and musk have become one.
Musk Mitti is a minimalist attar par excellence. A fragrance that’s beautiful, musky sweet and rainy-day fresh, it’s not about what’s inside or how it was made but about the soothing, transporative aroma you get to experience with each swipe and the breezes of petrichor that tease you for hours after.
