Le Labo Santal 33

Le Labo opened in 2006 at 233 Elizabeth Street in Nolita, New York, founded by Fabrice Penot and Edouard Roschi as, in the brand's own words, a scented revolution against the rising tide of conformity. The model was the message: bottles blended at the counter when you order rather than pre-packed months earlier, and a plain apothecary label carrying your name and the date. Every fragrance is named for a lead material and a number, and the number is commonly explained as the count of materials in the formula. Santal 33, from 2011 and commonly attributed to Frank Voelkl, became the fragrance that defined a decade of interiors, hotel lobbies and creative offices. It is arguably the most imitated niche scent of the twenty-first century, and it is worth understanding why. Le Labo publishes no conventional pyramid, but the copy it has long published names cardamom, iris and violet crackling in the formula over a smoking wood alloy of Australian sandalwood and cedarwood, with spicy, leathery and musky facets above that. The house frames it as sitting alone on the plains of the American West, firelight on your face. On skin it is dry, not creamy. Anyone expecting the milky sandalwood of older Indian-oil perfumes will be surprised: this is a hot, papery, almost smoky wood with an unmistakable leathery-violet edge that reads a little like suede and a little like a cigarette that has just gone out. The iris gives it a cool, powdery hush. There is a persistent green, almost cardamom-sharp quality up top that never fully leaves. It is linear by design; what you smell at twenty minutes is broadly what you smell at six hours. It is entirely unisex and it wears best in cool, dry conditions. On a Cape winter afternoon it is superb. In coastal humidity the smoky wood can turn sharp and insistent, so restraint helps. Performance is good rather than enormous: six to nine hours on skin, with an unusual quality of sitting close but being noticed by people nearby. It stains fabric less than its reputation suggests but lingers on scarves for days. Two caveats. It is now so widely worn and so widely copied that you will smell it on other people. And its dry, ashy signature genuinely divides opinion, so sample before committing.