Patchouli 24

Patchouli 24 smells like a fire that has burned down to embers: dark, tarry and oddly comforting once it settles. It was one of Le Labo's launch scents in 2006, composed by Annick Menardo, and it still divides people within seconds of the first spray. The opening is birch tar, phenolic and smoky, the kind of smoke people compare to a peated whisky or a barbecue pit. Patchouli gives the perfume its name and is genuinely part of the structure, lending the smoke an earthy, rooty body, but it rarely reads as patchouli on its own. Most wearers notice it only as a dark undertone; some pick it out clearly in the first minutes and again in the drydown. Through the heart, styrax adds a resinous, slightly rubbery sweetness and the smoke dries into leather. Hours in, vanilla rises from underneath, powdery rather than sugary, and the finish is smoke and vanilla close to the skin. Performance is heavy. It projects strongly for the first few hours and can still be noticed ten hours later. That makes it a cool-weather scent, best for evenings and casual wear where a strong, unusual signature is welcome. It is too loud and too strange for most offices, and the opening alone puts plenty of people off. It sits next to Menardo's own Bvlgari Black, which shares the smoke and the vanilla but is smoother and sweeter, and in the wider birch tar family alongside Tauer Lonestar Memories.