Shihan is a spicy gourmand fragrance created by Piotr Czarnecki. Shihan was originally released in 2013 under the name “Sensei”.

THE SENSEI BECOMES THE SHIHAN

Both of these words come from Japanese martial arts. I’m not a practitioner, so I can’t speak with authority about this, but here is my basic understanding. Sensei means “born before” and is used to refer to a teacher or instructor. Shihan means “to be a model”, and also refers to a teacher or instructor. By convention, it is an instructor who has reached a higher rank. A Shihan is a master teacher who is “a model for the art,” an exemplary practitioner and teacher.

The fragrance, and its creator, are a bit of a long and convoluted story. Piotr Czarnecki is a professional ballroom dancer and dance teacher in Poland. He also makes fragrances. In 2013, he released his first fragrance, “Sensei.” The fragrance came in three concentrations (EdT, EdP, and extrait) all packaged together. Each was said to smell a little bit different. Back in 2014, the fragrance became an overnight sensation which you apparently could only buy if you were friends with Piotr on Facebook, or knew someone with the hookup.

From what I can gather, Sensei the trio later became a single 100mL EdP called “Sensei.” Later on, to add to the confusion, the same fragrance was renamed “Piotr Czarnecki EdP.” All of this happened over a relatively short period of time, and then apparently it burned up in its own hotness? Now it has resurfaced as an apparent re-release called “Shihan.”

Somehow I managed to miss all the hype surrounding the original release, which is just as well. I’m never in short supply of rare fragrances to chase. Luckyscent is now carrying Shihan. Actually, at the moment it’s sold out and on backorder. But eventually it will be available, I presume.

I have never smelled the original Sensei in any concentration. What I have now, and am reviewing, is Shihan, which is an EdP. The brand itself does not have a website that I can find, even looking at Polish sites. Luckyscent says that Shihan was released in 2016, so I’m just going with that.

SHIHAN FRAGRANCE REVIEW

The opening of Shihan is very boozy. Not “boozy vanilla” or “boozy fruit”, I’m talking  straight-up, almost flammable. In fact, it smells an awful lot like a shot of Goldschläger (cinnamon schnapps) and Jameson Irish Whiskey.

After the first 15 minutes, the whiskey burn settles down, and there is a lot of dry, bitter chocolate. It still smells very much like Goldschläger though. I’ve seen a recipe called “El Dorado Hot Chocolate”, which takes a regular hot cocoa drink and adds Goldschläger — I imagine that it smells a lot like this.

At 30 minutes, the perfume seems to have settled, and a round note of bold coffee is very present. It’s very much a “fresh-brewed coffee” smell, when you can smell the oil coming off the beans as they’re ground, and as the hot water contacts them. And then, pouring the cup of coffee, seeing the slight sheen of the oil shimmering around each drop of the dark liquid.

It’s not coffee and cream. It’s hot, aromatic, black coffee. With a shot of Goldschläger.

GOLDSCHLÄGER

Why do I keep saying “shots of Goldschläger” as opposed to “sprinkles of cinnamon”? Because the flavor is very different. Cinnamon schnapps tastes like the hottest part of cinnamon, the cinnamaldehyde. It’s more burn, and less sweetness.

Cinnamon bark essential oil is composed of approximately 80% cinnamaldehyde, 10% trans-cinnamic acid, and 10% eugenol. When you sprinkle ground cinnamon, or grate a cinnamon stick, you are using the actual bark from the tree, which is less than 1% essential oil and 99% “bark”. (Some cans of “ground cinnamon” are mostly ground beechnut husk, dyed and flavored with cinnamaldehyde.)

Cinnamaldehyde is what gives things “red-hot” cinnamon flavor, like candies, gums, breath fresheners, and liqueurs.

There are many types of cinnamon liqueurs. Fireball is a cinnamon-flavored whiskey, so it has that barrel-aged whiskey flavor as its base. It’s 33% alcohol by volume (and dangerously drinkable if you like the flavor of Red Hots). The flavor of schnapps is less complex, because its base is a neutral grain spirit. There are lot of cinnamon schnapps out there, but they’re not all the same. Hot Damn! is a cinnamon schnapps but it’s only 15% alcohol by volume, and despite its bright red color, the “red hot” flavor is pretty watered down. Other cinnamon liqueurs with higher alcohol content and more robust flavor are Original Cinn, Fyr, and Tuaca Cinnaster. These have much more complex flavors, more sweetness and vanilla undertones, and less burn.

Goldschläger (43.5% ABV) is different from all of them, because it is very “one note.” It’s a dry liqueur that delivers straight-up hot cinnamon burn. And that’s what the cinnamon in this fragrance is like: hot cinnamon, without any nuance, and a little more of it than one really needs.

Like the “trophy wife” of the liquor cabinet, Goldschläger makes up for its lack of depth with its looks. It contains flakes of 24 carat gold. This makes it infinitely more interesting, because it has this unique visual appeal. Shihan needs something to distract me from the cinnamon, which is the one note that persists from start to finish in the fragrance.

An hour in, the coffee is gone. There’s been some tobacco lurking in the background, but it’s mostly gone too. At this point, I can smell a lot of labdanum, a little bit of balsam, and still too much cinnamon. At times, I think I smell black pepper, but it comes and goes. Mainly I smell cinnamon and amber. It’s a very thin fragrance, almost a skin scent. After about four hours I can barely smell anything at all.

The coffee note in Shihan was sublime. But it was so short-lived that I can’t really recommend this to people looking for “a coffee fragrance.” It doesn’t last long enough, and it’s dominated by the Goldschläger-like hot, linear cinnamon. It is also very labdanum-heavy, which I enjoy, but the juxtaposition with the other notes is a bit jarring. I love resins like benzoin and tolu balsam that hint at cinnamon, but this is like a cinnamon bomb.

Shihan is a cinnamon-amber fragrance. It does have a promising coffee-whiskey-tobacco top note, but all of that fades away within the first hour. I like cinnamon and amber, but Shihan doesn’t have enough depth to hold my interest. With each successive wearing, I felt more and more blasé about it, like riding the same carnival ride or watching the same magic trick over and over again. Or drinking too many shots of the same booze.

SHIHAN DETAILS

Shihan has low sillage and is mostly a skin scent after the first hour. Total longevity on my skin was about five hours. I would call it unisex, leaning toward the masculine.

Notes are listed as: whiskey, coffee, tobacco, pepper, cinnamon, incense, myrrh, spicy accord, ambrette, labdanum, benzoin, amber and musk.

Shihan is presented as an EdP. Luckyscent is selling a 100mL bottle for $160, for more information visit luckyscent.com.