Revolution

Inspired by the chaos in the streets of Paris during the French Revolution, Revolution is a fragrance full of the smells of danger – the peppery smoke of gunpowder mingling with raging fire, leather riding boots, and spilled musket oil. Such accords have the potential to come off as harsh or extreme, but in the experienced hands of British perfumer Lyn Harris, they convey the excitement of battle with a buttery smoothness that makes the scent a breeze to wear.

So we have rugged, ashy leather and the sooty smoke from burned-out houses, but with a creamy elemi underpinning that immediately softens the punch. Cade oil muscles its way past the buttery leather, filling the nostrils with its intensely green-black, smoky smell. Adding to the powerful impression of chaos created by the opening, a peppery papyrus combines with dusty cedar to create a searing flash of gunpowder from a newly-spent musket. Together, these notes conjure up the image of a young soldier, taking temporary shelter in a burned-out house on the Champs-Élysées, the searing smell of soot, ash, singed leather boots, and gunpowder softened by the creamy smell of ancient cedar bookcases, sheaves of paper, and the whiff of incense from a nearby church. And it’s this juxtaposition between burned and creamy elements that gives the scent its power to soothe and excite at the same time. Revolution is the smell of the vestiges of civilization meeting the approaching fires of the crusaders.

elemi, angelica, cedar, papyrus, patchouli, cade, incense, cistus, opoponax