TUSCAN SCENT INCENSE SUEDE
by FERRAGAMO
ingredients: leather, smoke, saffron
When I lived in England as a student I always used Wright’s Coal Tar Soap because of its wonderful smell of creosote fence paint. I did not know at the time that this was the last of the carbolic soaps, introduced after Joseph Lister’s discovery of the antiseptic properties of phenol in 1865 and popular until lemon took over as the reference smell of “clean” a century later.
I always wished for a fragrance that would convey the reassuringly hygienic feel of carbolic soap, but dressed for dinner rather than scrubbed for bed. In the last decade or so, this old wish of mine has been granted in full: Karine Vinchon started it all in 2007 with Eau de Jatamansi (L’Artisan Parfumeur) and many have followed with smoky notes, especially in the context of ouds.
This Tuscan Scent (why Tuscan?) takes the idea a decisive step further, and brilliantly mixes smoke with incense, suede, rosewood, and saffron, all materials with similar volatilities. The result is a completely linear fragrance, with practically no change in balance from top note to drydown.
There is no story, no scene change, no reveal, no nasty surprise: nothing happens in this hazy dusk, only a quietly insistent, serene, slightly melancholy timbre. I imagine this as the smell of a room in a Japanese mansion, all wood, paper and tatami, where the walls are so thin you clearly hear a distant gong. Truly excellent.
smoky suede
