Radio Bombay Perfume Oil
A sandalwood roll-on born from the smell of a heated tube amp and an imagined radio made of sandalwood, rebuilding Mysore santal from metal heat and wood warmth.
Perfumer: David Seth Moltz
Radio Bombay perfume oil grows out of what David Seth Moltz calls hypothetical scent. Light bulbs and amplifier tubes give off an aroma when they heat up; after hard playing, he writes, the back of his 1969 Fender Deluxe produces a hot, dusty, metallic grease smell. So he asked what would happen if a tube amplifier sat inside an old radio made of sandalwood, its heat opening the pores of the wood and letting its smooth fragrance sing.
Moltz takes apart the scent of Mysore sandalwood and rebuilds its impression from those associations. Radiant wood, copper and cedar set hot metal against dry timber; radiant iris and boronia gather around the sandalwood; coconut musk adds a creamy roundness.
The imagined setting is a small, hot shop in Bandra, which he likens to Bombay's Brooklyn, with ragas and Geeta Dutt songs jangling from a tiny speaker into the busy city. In this 10 mL roll-on, the brand says, the sandalwood reads warmer and rounder than in the spray.
