Spicebomb Extreme

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren set up their label in 1993 as conceptual artists working in couture, and their fragrances have always carried that streak of provocation. Flowerbomb came first, in 2005, in a grenade-shaped bottle; Spicebomb followed in 2012 as its masculine counterpart, the same flacon rendered in gunmetal. Spicebomb Extreme, released in 2015 as an eau de parfum, is the version that took over the line's reputation entirely. Viktor and Rolf credit Carlos Benaim and Jean-Christophe Herault with the composition.

The house's own structure is unusually specific: black pepper essence at the top, a saffron accord at the heart, and resinous cistus absolute at the base, with lavender, cinnamon, cumin, tobacco, vanilla, bourbon and a woody amber filling in around them. The first spray is genuinely hot, a peppery, cumin-tinged blast with lavender giving it a strange aromatic coolness underneath. Then the fragrance turns and becomes something else altogether: cinnamon and saffron warm into a thick, sweet tobacco, and the vanilla and bourbon underneath give it a boozy, almost pipe-shop richness. Cistus and woody amber hold the base together and stop the sweetness collapsing. The overall effect is spiced tobacco and vanilla, dense enough to feel like an object rather than a scent.

This is a winter fragrance and there is no arguing with it. It suits a Highveld winter night, and it is close to unwearable in summer heat, where the cumin and cinnamon can turn sour. It also demands discipline: one spray, on the chest, under a shirt. Two sprays in an enclosed office is antisocial.

Performance is the reason it is rated as highly as it is by users. Ten hours and more is routine, sillage is very wide for the first four, and it survives a wash cycle on wool. That density is also the criticism, since it flattens into a fairly linear sweet-spice accord after the first hour and never develops much further. It sits alongside a large Spicebomb family, including the original eau de toilette and later Night Vision and Infrared variants, none of which are as loud as this one.