Hautbois

Founder Franck Salzwedel has long been drawn to natural oud, and with perfumer Clément Gavarry he set out to push it somewhere deeper, where dense woods tip into vertigo. Gavarry describes sinking the oud into a light-swallowing black, then letting honey bring back light and vetiver open up the earth, until a bronze glow emerged.

The opening pairs creamy ylang-ylang with the warm bite of Ceylon cinnamon and the soft, hay-like calm of chamomile oil. At the heart, cypriol, smoky guaiac wood and Australian sandalwood stack into a woody core. A Provence honey accord rounds the edges, and Haitian vetiver adds an earthy shade. The base settles on Indonesian patchouli, cistus absolute, a wood-leather note and Oud Assafi from Bangladesh: resinous, dark and dense, polished by sweetness and spice.

The bottle, conceived as an architectural block of solid glass, is shaped to catch the light. An extrait for evenings when you want to sit with deep woods.