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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

In 2023, perfumer Alexandre Helwani travelled to Jerusalem to investigate the perfumes of the Bible, setting off a two-year quest to uncover a formula that had laid hidden and unmade for three thousand years.

Helwani believed that gematria held a key to deciphering the encrypted formula in the text. He turned to Marc-Alain Ouaknin, a theologian renowned for his expertise in Hebrew hermeneutics who confirmed his initial hunch. Together, they worked out the equation to break open the code of the poem, which revealed precise indications to compound its fragrance: “It felt unreal. Gematria was used to reveal hidden meanings in the Bible. As I applied this equation to each plant of the Song of Songs, I was always sent to very precise comments such as ‘use the red variety’ or ‘divide this material by ten.”

Once he had worked out the formula, Helwani set out to source some of the rare materials mentioned in the poem, including the mythical balsam of Gilead and a unique extract of Socotra frankincense. “Most scholars believe that the balsam was the resin of Commiphora gileadensis, which hasn’t been harvested in millennia. I asked a friend of mine, a raw materials’ distiller, to produce some for me, and thankfully he did. As for the frankincense, I got in touch with a chemist who had studied the essential oil of Boswellia socotrana. His was the only sample of this
essential oil ever produced in history and he agreed to send it to me.”

Besides natural essences, Helwani worked on recreating botanical accords corresponding to the poem’s plants. “If you read the Song, it mentions wine flowers. I contacted an historian to know which wine cépages were grown in that place and time and then asked chemist friends to do GCMS analyses of their flowers, in order to reconstruct the accord as there are no wine flower essential oils available. The same went with mandrake and pomegranate. It was important that the perfume be botanical, as in using only molecules present in nature.”

One ingredient stood out from the others, the ‘rose of Sharon’. “It never was a rose; all scholars agree on that. Its nature is disputed but upon applying the equation to the word, havatzelet, I was sent towards a plant no one had thought of. It ticked all the boxes, was grown in Sharon at the time of the Song’s writing, corresponded to historical and botanical analyses. It was the havatzelet and it made the perfume whole.”

And then, there was the curse. “There is an inscription on the frontispiece of a synagogue in Ein Gedi that curses whoever reveals the secret of this place. It’s Ouaknin’s belief that the secret in question is the perfume hidden in the text. My
belief is that this secret is precisely the nature of havatzelet, and I’m superstitious enough not to reveal what it is.”

The formula deciphered, Helwani travelled to New-York to preserve and protect it. “It was a weird meeting. I told them all about the project and one of the partners refused to even look at the formula, as he was more superstitious than I was. The complete formula is now in a safe and we set out strict conditions for its transmission after my death, so that the formula can live on without being offered to untrained eyes.”


Pre-order item will go into production and will be delivered once 200 bottles have been ordered. If for any reason we don't reach 200 orders, you will be fully reimbursed.