Laboratorio Olfattivo Tantrico by Nicoleta ©
It is no secret that I’m a long-time big fan of Laboratorio Olfattivo, and I have raved here, in detail, about the holy grail vanilla of Vanagloria, the pirate air of Cozumel, and the deep charm of Tonkade.
Laboratorio Olfattivo Tantrico, created by Lucien Ferrero Maitre Parfumeur is an elegant and surprising take on the theme of sandalwood: “What is more noble for a perfumer than Sandal attar? Without a doubt it is the most precious essential oil in the history of perfumery, with a refined elegance, an unparalleled sensuality, and an intimacy that I invite you to try.” said Lucien Ferrero, in a note from the brand.
Lucien Ferrero courtesy of the perfumer
“A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.
Love on the water, love underwater, love, love, and so on.
What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.
Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly
flames everywhere.”*
The top notes of Laboratorio Olfattivo Tantrico are a blast of aromatic essences, sizzling bright on the skin, like a snake turned into a dragon, rapidly shedding one translucent skin into the next. The first minutes felt exactly like taking shot after shot from a frosted glass of gin, leaving my breath so freshly bitter that I colored the air around me in green and blue hues. With sharp edges of the juniper berries, the effervescence of lime, and the astringency of grapefruit on top of the prickly sage, the fragrance in the top notes has the sort of “action-adventure” type of masculine energy that I enjoy wearing, and that I have also encountered in Lucian Ferrero’s Harmonie Pastorale that I have covered here.
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, Painting by William Blake
“I can tell already you think I’m the dragon,
that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon.
I’m not the princess either.
I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow
glass, but that comes later.
And the part where I push you
flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,
shut up
I’m getting to it.”*
There are some fragrances that I feel appeal to the left side of my brain hemisphere, the ones that cater to my (more) analytical and orderly side. In the drydown, Laboratorio Olfattivo Tantrico has a slightly brutal and rugged sensuality, yet behaves all orderly and proper, just like an olfactive soldier, relentless marching on its quest. The velvety sandalwood heart has an armor built around it, with intricate chain mail, bouncing from the herbaceous and fresh woody facets of the cypress to the spicy and hot bites of the pepper, making for an interesting mixture of passionate yet very controlled energy. Very… tantrico, indeed.
Laboratorio Olfattivo Tantrico by Nicoleta (in the background is a page from the book The Encyclopedia of Dragons by Mircea Cărtărescu with illustrations by Tudor Banus)
“For a while, I thought I was the dragon.
I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was
the princess,
cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,
young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with
confidence
but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,
while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,
and getting stabbed to death.
Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.
You still get to be the hero.”*
The chainmail falls to the ground and uncovers the skin. Lived in, scratched, bloodied yet unbowed, warmed by the musk, the base note alternate between the sternness of cold wood nervures and the sweet richness of resins, swinging between camphoraceous and balsamic.
Tantrico is far from a linear take on the sandalwood theme, with an intimate but present aura, an elusive dragon skin that I will wrap myself in this spring.
* excerpts from the poem Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out by Richard Siken
Notes: Top: Juniper Berries, Lime, Clary Sage of Provence, Grapefruit; Heart: Cypress, Timor Pepper, Sandalwood E.O.; Base: White Musks, Balsam Fir Absolute, Atlas Cedar
Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor
Disclosure: Bottle kindly provided by Laboratorio Olfattivo, opinions are my own
Thanks to the generosity of Laboratorio Olfattivo we have a 100 ml bottle for one registered reader in the USA or EU. 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 4/14/2022
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