Nishane B-612 Extrait de Parfum

Nishane was founded in Istanbul in 2012 by Mert Güzel and Murat Katran and is generally described as Turkey's first niche fragrance house. That claim matters more than it sounds, because it put a Turkish perspective into a category that had been almost entirely French, Italian and British. The house works largely in extrait de parfum concentration, which is unusual at any scale, and it names its fragrances after things it actually cares about. B-612 takes its name from the asteroid the Little Prince came from in Saint-Exupéry's book, and Nishane's own note describes a scent meant to make the wearer imaginative, open-minded and alert to the mystery and beauty of the world.

The composition is a fougère, and a properly built one. Lavender, geranium and cypress open it: herbal, slightly camphorous, green in a resinous rather than a leafy way. The heart is where the money clearly went, with cashmeran, cedarwood, sandalwood and patchouli stacked into a dense woody core, cashmeran contributing that warm, ambery, faintly musky hum modern woody fragrances lean on so heavily. The base is classical fougère architecture brought up to date: oakmoss for the bitter green underside, tonka bean for a soft coumarin sweetness, and musk to smooth the edges. Nishane classifies it as aromatic, balsamic and fougère, and that is exactly how it wears, old-school bones carrying contemporary density.

It is a cool-weather fragrance and a forceful one. A Cape winter, a good coat, evening rather than office. It also works as a signature for someone who liked the classic barbershop fougères but wants more weight and less soap. Nishane does not publish perfumer credits for its line, so nobody can honestly be named here.

Performance is where extrait concentration earns its keep. Expect ten hours or more on skin, with the cashmeran and tonka core still detectable on a collar the following morning. Projection is significant for the first three hours. Two sprays is a full application and three is too many indoors, which means a 50ml bottle lasts far longer than the number on it suggests.