Vanilla Black Pepper

Bohoboco's Vanilla Black Pepper arrives as a deliberate provocation—a fragrance that refuses the expected sweetness of its vanilla base and instead weaponises it with black pepper's sharp bite. This is vanilla for those who find conventional gourmands cloying; here, the base note's creamy warmth serves as a canvas for spice rather than an end in itself. The opening's orange blossom provides a brief moment of luminosity, but it's quickly absorbed into the fragrance's darker architecture, where heliotrope and olibanum wood create a resinous, almost ecclesiastical undertone that sits uncomfortably with the sweetness above. Rose and cedarwood add structural integrity, preventing the composition from tipping into pure gourmand territory.

This is a scent for the contrarian—someone drawn to the tension between comfort and challenge. The woody accord (88%) and smoky character (64%) suggest wearing this on autumn evenings when you want something that smells expensive but slightly dangerous. It's neither classically masculine nor feminine; rather, it possesses the confident ambiguity of someone who dresses for themselves. The white musk foundation grounds everything, lending a skin-like quality that prevents the spice and sweetness from becoming theatrical. Wear this when you want a fragrance that requires attention, that demands people lean in close to truly understand what you're wearing.