Kyara no Bara began with a simple idea: rose and oud. But anyone who has worked with these materials knows that simplicity is often the hardest thing to achieve. I spent years searching for the right pieces, and for a long time it always felt close but never complete. Something was missing, a voice, a texture, a bridge between the rose and the kinam.
Everything changed when I finally secured the Japanese rose, Rosa rugosa. Bright, jammy, slightly spicy, and textured. This was the missing note. Once it joined the formula, everything fell into place. Kyara no Bara became what it was always meant to be.
The journey behind this perfume was long. Ingredients came from forests in Vietnam and Japan, from Indian rose distillers, from Chinese herbal collectors, from old private reserves that required months of conversation before a single gram was released. Nothing in this perfume was easy to obtain. Nothing here is replaceable.
At the centre are two rare materials.
Wild Kyara oud: the rarest expression of agarwood, aged for decades, with a calm, deep, resinous soul.
Japanese rose (Rosa rugosa): sharp, jam-kissed, unlike any other rose in olfaction.
These two carry the spirit of the perfume. Everything else supports them.
Purple & white Chinese Kinam, support wild Kyara bring layered wood tones.
Turkish red rose, Chaitri rose, Taifi rose, and Rosa rugosa again create a rose accord with weight, freshness, spice, and depth.
Frankincense and frankincense flower bring a resinous lift that ties the florals to the woods.
Pineapple myrtle, distilled in-house, adds a green, resinous lift. Chinese tangerine opens the structure.
Du Huo and Ba Zhi, ancient Chinese botanicals, bring grounding. Golden silk nanmu, Japanese torreya, and chuan xiang build the wooden frame beneath the perfume.
A rare ambergris maceration with rose adds a quiet, salty warmth that is impossible to replicate.
In the late drydown, honeysuckle softens the composition, while the final note: a vintage Maroke 1982, appears in a deep, smoky whisper. Among connoisseurs, this 1982 Maroke stands at the top of its category, rivalled only by the most coveted vintage Vietnamese kinams. Its presence gives Kyara no Bara a final signature: ancient, calm, and unmistakably regal.
Kyara no Bara draws from the spirit of kōdō, the Japanese art of incense appreciation, where kinam isn’t burned for smoke but listened to for its character. This perfume is built on that same approach, not incense consumed, but incense experienced.
On the skin, the perfume begins with a clear, bright rose lifted by tangerine. Then the kinam rises, slow and steady, meeting the rose in the centre. The botanicals and woods build a bridge between them, grounding the scent without muting its clarity. Hours later, the perfume settles into a soft radiance of incense, rose, and aged wood.
I made only a small batch, and it will never be recreated in the same way again. Too many of the materials are irreplaceable. Kyara no Bara is a story of persistence, rarity, and devotion, a perfume built around two rare voices, wild kinam and Japanese rose, carried by a cast of unforgettable supporting notes.
This is the scent that finally completed its own search.
