Histoires de Parfums Encens Roi courtesy of the brand

“My perfumes have never been about a quest for the most beautiful scent,
but always for the most beautiful emotion.” –Gérald Ghislain Creative Director and founder of Histoires de Parfums

 

Gerald Ghislain photo courtesy of Gerald Ghislain

One of the pioneer houses of niche perfumery, Histoires de Parfums was founded 22 years ago by Gerald Ghislain. The “stories to be read on your skin” are a veritable olfactive library that has been enchanting us, through the years, with its interpretation of famous characters, mythical years, poems, music, and raw materials.

Celine Pedriel at Cosmo International courtesy of the perfumer

Today it’s the turn of incense to wear the crown and be king with the soon to be released Histoires de Parfums Encens Roi composed by young perfumer Celine Pedriel. Not coincidentally, an entirely new brand, called Olibanum was launched this year by Gérald Ghislain, in order to celebrate his favourite material (read more about it in Emmanuelle Varron’s Esxence 2022  Event Report here.)

AI generated image of a galaxy in a bottle, made using Midjourney

In an imaginary future, span forward in time, when humanity would wake up from its cryosleep on its new Earth, what music would we have chosen they be played when we wake up? What episodes of our bloodied history, what lessons, what fragments of our glory and magnificence would we use to jog back our collective memory? What colors, from our millennia of art, would we pick to color our blood back to red? How would we remember how to be human? Where would the essence lie?

I don’t know, and the more the years pass by, the more I find new and contradicting answers to this mental exercise. But one answer never changes, no matter what. What would our awakening smell like? What ELSE but incense?

 If one could choose one substance to play as scented background to the unwinding of history, for sure this would be it. From ancient Babylon where it burned in the altars for the feast of Bel to Nero’s excesses and the Roman victory parades, the gods changed their faces, their names, and their habits. But our thirst for incense never grew dimmer.

A note from the brand  Histoires de Parfums Encens Roi is a tribute to the resin of resins. From the spice-filled shores of ancient India to the sumptuous, smoke-filled naves of Gothic basilicas; from the coronation of Babylonian kings to the birth of Christ; from the summits of the Omani Hojar to the desert plains of Somalia; from Cleopatra to Alexander, from Ulysses to Salome, from the pharaohs to the centuries awaiting to be fulfilled, Frankincense is the crossroads of peoples, the junction of civilisations that time and language and war have long kept apart.”

 AI-generated image of incense smoke inside a cathedral, made using Midjourney

This summer was amazing for those of us fascinated with AI-generated art. With Midjourney and DALL-E2 opening up for more and more testers, I must admit, that after countless hours of digging and refining the right keywords – most of my thought process, even in the so-called “real life” was filtered through prompts. So, Encens Roi, if I were to sum it up in one sentence, would be: “/imagine: cold pillars of smoke, gothic cathedral, desert setting, cinematic details/

Histoires de Parfums Encens Roi is a beautiful and complex incense fragrance that takes you on a journey. We begin with the smoky incense one would find inside a cathedral, with intricate details that paint the cool-toned, cool facets of incense: thick blue smoke, the deep green bitter nuances of wet stone walls, covered in vegetation that is accustomed only to shade, the wet woods of ancient furniture, left outside for one rain too many.  It’s solemn, contemplative, cold, and introspective and you would be tricked to think you are in the presence of another take on the cold-incense- Comme des Garcons Avignon-theme. But wait, there’s more!

AI generated image made using Midjourney

Coming out of the cathedral, we find ourselves midsummer, midday, blinded by the orange rays of the sun, warming us, as we head for the exit through the gardens. Slightly sweet ripe fruit whispers carry us to the exit, with the smell of the desert becoming denser and getting hotter by the second.  Resin oils, sweet and thick, balsams, and spicy hot smoke carry us unto the next chapters of our journey, further into the promise of the 1001 Arabian Nights. The growl of the oud, present, but centerstage in the field of view never lets us forget the path we are on now, with another slightly sweet creamy undercurrent weaved around it, that acts as a reassuring guide. A white cacao accord, far from its cacao chocolatey gourmand alter-ego, acts as a buttery sweet counterpart to the oud and incense.

Histoires de Parfums Encens Roi is the fragrant embodiment of having two scented smoke serpents, dancing entwined around your skin: a blue, cold one that will tell you to pick the introspective path for finding your answers, and the hot, fiery one that will always say that our senses prevail. So yes, in short, I might have just found the incense that speaks of our humanity, in all its contradicting forms.

Notes: Top: Olibanum CO2*, Roman Chamomile, Schinus Molle

Heart: Saffron, Pimento Berry CO2*, Atlas Cedarwood

Base: White cacao, Agarwood (Oud), Cistus, Vanilla

*Note from the brand: Supercritical CO2 extraction entails treating a natural aromatic raw material with CO2 in the supercritical state. In this state, CO2 has the viscosity of a gas and the density of a liquid, which makes it an effective solvent. This method does not produce greenhouse gas or pollutants.

Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor

Disclosure:  Travel spray kindly provided by Histories de Parfums, opinions are my own

 

Histories de Parfums Encens Roi will be launched in October 2022

Thanks to the generosity of a team member, we have a 2ml AVANT PREMIERE sample of Histories de Parfums Encens Roi for one registered reader in the USA, EU and UK You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Nicoleta’s review and where you live. Draw closes 9/3/2022

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