Best Nocturnality by Arquiste Alternatives & Similar Perfumes

Perfumer: Sven Pritzkoleit

It's a dramatic animalic dry leather. Smell the artistic take on the hyraceum aroma (a larger than life fantasy) in this perfume and also if you visit us at Covent Garden, you can discover how natural hyraceum smells. We have a piece of this ancient fascinating material for educational purposes.

Sven used natural hyraceum as obtaining this material does not involve any animal cruelty (please see below). However, the perfumer purposeley enhanced most of the nuances of natural hyraceum to dramatic proportions: animalic, urinous, leathery, ambery and barnyard.

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What is hyraceum?

Hyraceum is the fossilized urine of hyraxes Bloom's specimen (available to smell at our Covent Garden store) came from a mountainous area in South Africa and was harvested by local tribesmen from a hyrax’s urinal area in an ancient cave (as communal animals they have a designated communal loo - latrine). Hyraceum is exclusively fossilized urine deposits (no feces). As many desert plants and animals have water saving habits – hyraxes’ urine is not a liquid. They excrete jelly-like urine that dries in the sun to a stone.

The specimen was procured with the expert assistance of The Rising Phoenix Perfumery and could be thousands of years old.

This extrait is named for the archipelagic country in the South Pacific Ocean, source of the sandalwood in the base. Vanuatu is a lively, confident blend of spices (black pepper, cardamom, cumin) dappled across characterful woody materials (sandalwood, patchouli, cedar and papyrus). Putting meat on the bones is fig milk, with violet leaves adding sharp sparkle. A fragrance for unexpected adventures.

As featured on The 2025 Esquire Grooming Awards

A latex and leather 'oud-style' scent. A perfumer’s take on neon-soaked nightlife, the leather scene and raw, nocturnal behavior. With notes of latex, neoprene leather, black shoe shine, hydrocarboresin and styrax.

With each perfume formula Mendittorosa interpret and reference some profound metaphysical notion. In Rituale it’s rituals from the most ancient times, humanity trying to please the gods, destiny and bringing order into chaos.

Rituale is a generous offering of golden narcissuses (heady and honeyed), precious sandalwood and fruits, a ritual of fragrant rhythm and harmony.

A tribute to the scents of Colombia, this extrait de parfum suggests a late-night dinner for two under the stars. A gourmand dance of aromas is carried on the warm breeze: coffee, rum, chocolates. Powdery, pillowy vanilla and iris blur into vetiver and sandalwood for a sumptuous dream.

Perfumer: Clément Marx

‘All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream’

From "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allen Poe

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A visionary scent, pulled from the unconscious mind via an ocean of gauzy marine dreams. Sogno Reale brims with brine-leather, sea urchins and electrified air. Calm sea meets volcanic fumes, woods and a sun-bright shock of lemon and bergamot. Warm rum and sweet, earthen patchouli swirl protectively around gentle tuberose and a quiet dose of hyraceum, warming its fur in the Mediterranean sun.  Sogno Reale is balm for the soul; a talisman dreamed into existence, the unconscious mind made extraordinary perfumed flesh.

Extending a moment held in time. At dawn, hand in hand.
Images cross and softly intertwine.
Zesty tangerine, fresh eucalyptus, enveloped by cocoa. A loving memory.

The concept of the smell is walking among giant sequoias, so tall the sunlight never reaches the ground, breathing crisp air of a coniferous forest. Expect a seriously dark woody character, more on the drier resinous side of the woody spectrum.

The perfume has a smoky nuance but neither in the creamy way of Le Labo's Santal 37 nor in the outrageous gunpowder way of Beaufort's Tonnere. Woody Mood's smokiness is a gentle facette combined from smoky nuances of frankincense, sequoia and black tea.

It is the energy of myth and the elegance of the garden that inspire a refined and vigorous essence.

Bergamot and juniper berries become full-bodied on a carpet of incense, fading into the persistent fascination of oriental wood.

The presence of a marble Hercules in the garden of the perfumer’s house, triumph of courage and immortality, elevates to myth the creations of Agatho and the Giardinodiercole becomes a perfume.