Kyphi
KYPHI · EXTRAIT · EGYPTIAN ALABASTER
The Anointing
Perfume was not worn. It was administered.
In the temples, scent was compounded by priests and kept in a sacred chamber set aside for the purpose. The formula for Kyphi was cut into the walls at Edfu and at Philae so that it could not be lost.
It was applied to the body as rite. Oil to the crown, the neck, the wrists. It marked a person as prepared, as received, as set apart from the ordinary hours of the day.
Somewhere between then and now, scent became a thing you put on before leaving the house.
Ashmawey exists to return it to the ceremony it was meant to be.
KYPHI
Some secrets were carved in stone so they could outlive empires.
In the temples of ancient Egypt, priests blended a scent so precious that its formula was inscribed into the walls themselves — sixteen materials, joined to sacred recitation. Golden honey. Sun-sweetened raisin. Saffron and cinnamon. Myrrh and frankincense, drawn from trees older than memory.
This was Kyphi. It moved through the palaces of queens.
Three thousand years passed. The stone kept its secret.
From the inscriptions at Edfu and Philae, Ashmawey has awakened Kyphi — faithful to the ancients, composed for the modern wearer.
THE ACCORD
TOP
SaffronCardamomJuniper BerryDavanaMint
HEART
CinnamonGolden HoneyEgyptian JasmineHenna BlossomCalamus
BASE
MyrrhFrankincenseMasticLabdanumCypriolSun-Dried Raisin Amber
SESEN
The word for breathing in a flower.
The Egyptians had a verb for it. Sesen: to draw a blossom's scent into yourself. It is the same root as seshen, the lotus — the flower that closes at dusk and sinks beneath the water, and opens again at first light.
Sesen is composed for the hour when the garden turns. Egyptian jasmine grown and picked in the Nile Delta, tuberose absolute, and a base of vanilla and benzoin that holds the flowers rather than sweetening them.
TOP
SaffronBergamotGreen Note
HEART
Egyptian JasmineTuberoseOrange BlossomHoney Absolute
BASE
VanillaBenzoinLabdanumSandalwood
MEDJAY
The desert scouts.
The Medjay were Nubian trackers who became Egypt's frontier force, patrolling the eastern desert and the routes to the mines. They worked in country that offered no shade and no water, and the state trusted them with its borders for more than a thousand years.
Medjay is dry, resinous, and unsweetened. Haitian vetiver and Atlas cedar over labdanum and frankincense, with the leather register carried by the resin rather than by any animalic material.
TOP
Black PepperJuniper BerryElemi
HEART
FrankincenseCypressCistus
BASE
Haitian VetiverAtlas CedarLabdanumOudDry Amber
THE VESSEL
Turned, not moulded.
Each flacon is turned by hand from Egyptian alabaster, so no two are identical in figure. The lid is black stone, crowned with a winged figure in gold. The name is cut into the stone as a cartouche — the enclosure the Egyptians reserved for names meant to endure.
THE FIRST RELEASE
Kyphi is not yet for sale.
The first release is limited and will be offered to the list before anywhere else.
Received.
We will be in touch.