Tears of Eros

Tears of Eros is a hyacinth-and-incense perfume built from one winter night in the artist's studio: Kyoto incense, a bowl of discarded clementine peel and a night-blooming hyacinth, with moonlit air coming through the open windows. Paul Schütze calls the result a narcotic, heady, living incense, and it is one of the most divisive scents in a divisive trio. The opening is bright, sharp and green. Clementine and pink pepper spark over a large, wet hyacinth, with cardamom adding a dry, cool spice, and some wearers find a metallic or piercing edge in the first minutes. If you stay with it, the hyacinth turns woody and smoky as incense, guaiac wood and cedar come forward, with orris adding powdery softness and labdanum and benzoin giving ambery, resinous depth. Ambergris leaves a salty, driftwood finish. Wear is moderate to long, from about six hours for most wearers to the whole day by the maker's own account, and the projection is strong, so one or two sprays are plenty. It suits cool, damp evenings and spring and autumn days best, and wearers warn that heat pushes the hyacinth too far forward. It is not an easy or romantic scent despite its name. People describe it as dry, smoky and green rather than sweet or floral in the usual way. It sits at the art-perfume end of niche, nearer to dry incense scents than to any floral, and it rewards patience more than a quick spray in a shop. Try it on skin for an hour before deciding, because the opening is the hardest part.