Description
“For the collection named as “SHADOW PLAY” launched in 2017, NISHANE has got the main inspiration from the traditional shadow play which is also known as shadow puppetry, an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Various effects can be achieved by moving both the puppets and the light source. A talented puppeteer can make the figures appear to walk, dance, fight, nod and laugh.
KARAGOZ (meaning “black eye” in Turkish) and HACIVAT (shortened in time from “Hacı İvaz” meaning “İvaz the Pilgrim”), ZENNE (the common name of the generally beautiful and flirty women featuring in various plays) are the lead characters of the traditional Turkish shadow play, popularized during the Ottoman period and then spread to most nation states that comprised the Ottoman Empire and most prominently in Turkey and Greece.
The creative directors Mert Güzel and Murat Katran dreamed of bringing the legend of Karagoz & Hacivat into the today’s world. Under the inspiration of their playful characters, the perfume trilogy has been created together with the perfumer Jorge Lee. Just like the theme of these shadow plays, the main objective of NISHANE was to emphasize the contrasting interaction of the people that we can see in every single culture.
HACIVAT is a tribute to elegance, competence, and love of art.
ZENNE is a tribute to beauty, self-confidence, and flirtation.
KARAGOZ is a tribute to wittiness, straightforwardness and sincerity” — press release of the brand. Karagoz was created by Jorge Lee, Murat Katran and Mert Guzel.
vova2026 – :
Tested a sample.
The opening is in your face, loud and brash, all fruity and a bit dry and smoky from the Oud and vetiver. It was promising.
If this perfume works for you, congrats, it has excellent projection.
For me unfortunately, it’s a scrubber.
After 20-30 minutes, this turns to unbearable on my skin.
I don’t know if it’s the fruits, or the fixative base used here. I’ve smelled this note in several perfumes, all modern releases, so my guess is these house use a common fixative chemical and it stinks on my skin. I’ll have to try to obtain a different sample from this house to know if it’s the chemical or the fruit notes. If it’s the fixative, then Nishane is another house to cross off my list of interests.
Fanny – :
Chypre, birch and pineapple. So mostly it’s neroli, birch, and salty pineapple. I really wonder why does he use salt allot? This one as well beside “Zeene” is quite salty!
nusferatu13 – :
I received a sample of this as part of the “Nishane Shadow Play Trilogy” set from Twisted Lily.
Disclaimers:
– I am very new to perfumes. I’m still learning, and trying to get my head around how things smell and what works for me, so take all this with a big grain of salt.
– It’s starting to look like citrus, and especially neroli, might not work for me. If you love citrus and wear it easily, my comments might not apply to you at all.
– Edit to add: This was just one spritz on my inner elbow.
So, what I get from this is the neroli. Lots and lots of orange that just doesn’t fade, ever, for me. It has a smell that comes across to me as strongly “perfumey” (which I think that’s how my nose reads neroli). The “perfume” smell, to me, is on the high end of moderate. Not quite enough to force me to scrub, but enough that I’ve noticed it all day, even without actively sniffing my skin.
The initial notes were orange, with a subtle soap clean smell. It was fresh, bright, and clean. But that morphed to “perfume” quickly (The “perfume” smell became apparent in the first 10-20 minutes). At 1.5h, I was still getting a few whiffs of freshness and some greenness, and at one point, I thought that I caught a subtle hint of mint underneath all the orange brambles, bushes, and overflowing baskets of blossoms. Perhaps that was the “green notes”?
But, now, at 8 hours in… it is still very orange and very perfumey on me.
This particular type of smell seems to be common, and it lasts forever on me. It reminds me of Clean Reserve’s Citron & Fig, which is absolutely crazy, because they appear to have no notes in common. But, I sprayed a quick test of this on one tissue and Citron & Fig on another, and sure enough, they are eerily similar to my nose, even without my skin involved. Citron & Fig opened up a bit lighter with a bit more sweetness from the citron, but after some time, the two tissues are very, very close in smell. (I’m curious if anyone else smells this, or if it’s something particular to my nose!)
I wish that I got the grape notes! Grape notes sound so odd, unexpected, and refreshing… and I haven’t had the chance to try anything with grape. But, I get no grape nor pineapple, or much of anything else. Just a fairly large cloud of inescapable neroli perfumedness. Which, if you like neroli, could be great… but this isn’t something that I’m likely to wear again.
From reading reviews of other citrus-based fragrances, it seems there are plenty of people who might love this one as well. Sadly, it just doesn’t work well for my nose or skin.
Erereeindit – :
If you would like this scent, you definitely will love its performance. On my skin it has heavy, borderline enormous sillage and projection for first 8 hours, moderate for another 4, and at least another 4 as skin scent. On paper it lasted over 24 hours.
Now the “IF” part. It opens like beautiful, intriguing and cheerful grape soda. Gourmand and fresh. Within 20 min, however, it changes so radically and not in good way. Still, when sprayed on paper it is strong like for me, but on my skin it smells terrible. Like some old sweaty bum came out of nowhere, spilled that grape soda all over suede couch, and sit on it without any intention to leave. So I would say it is NOT a safe buy, and you should get tester.
Although it listed as unisex, it is absolutely masculine scent. Honestly, I can’t even imagine woman who can pull it in any way, unless some unimaginable changes with the skin chemistry.