This is what autumn smells like
THREE NOTES OF AUTUMN
This is what autumn smells like
Three notes that come back to almost every bottle in September. Smell them while you read.
ambervanillapatchoulicedarwoodtonkacarameltobaccooudcinnamonhoneycoffeesandalwoodleathersaffronincensechocolatecardamomclove
FIRST NOTE
TONKA
How it smells
Warm and soft, like vanilla with the sugar taken out. Underneath there is almond, cut hay and a trace of tobacco. It is the smell that stays on your sweater when you come in from the cold.
- It is neither a spice nor a flower - it is the seed of an Amazonian tree, as big as an olive.
- The US has banned it in food since 1954, yet it is perfectly allowed in perfume and is one of the best loved notes in the world.
- Coumarin, its main compound, is widely credited as the first synthetic ingredient to carry a perfume - Fougère Royale, 1882.
Our perfumes with tonka
SECOND NOTE
LEATHER
How it smells
Dry, smoky, almost sharp at first. Like the inside of a new car and an old leather armchair in the same room. After half an hour it softens and turns warm, almost sweet.
- There is no leather oil. The note is built from birch tar, styrax and labdanum - the smell is assembled, not extracted.
- Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, began as a town of tanners. Gloves were perfumed to cover the smell of tanning, and in time the perfumers pushed the tanners out.
- Russian leather was finished with birch oil, and that smoky trace became the template for every leather accord.
Our perfumes with leather
THIRD NOTE
CINNAMON
How it smells
First dry and sharp, as if you had rubbed the bark between your fingers. Then comes the sweetness and the warmth spreading over your skin. That is why cinnamon is the first thing you notice in a perfume.
- It is neither fruit nor leaf but the inner bark of a tree, peeled and dried until it curls into a stick on its own.
- True Ceylon cinnamon and cheaper cassia are two different plants - most of what is sold as cinnamon is actually cassia.
- Herodotus wrote down the story Arab traders told him: that cinnamon was guarded by enormous birds on unreachable cliffs. Historians think it served to hide the real origin.
Our perfumes with cinnamon
Autumn does not ask for a new perfume. It asks for the right one.
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