Ex Nihilo
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Nutmeg crashes through immediately with peppery vivacity, a sharp spice that immediately establishes this won't be a creamy sandalwood fantasy. The Australian white sandalwood arrives simultaneously, bone-dry and almost angular, whilst the iris begins its cool, detergent-like whisper in the background. You're struck first by the spice-wood interplay—it's bracing, almost medicinal.
The nutmeg's heat softens into the iris-milk pairing, which emerges as the true character of the fragrance. There's something gently soapy and powdery now, a creamy texture that contrasts beautifully with the persistent woody core. The sandalwood deepens without warming, remaining linear and structural as bourbon vanilla threads underneath with subtle sweetness.
What remains is essentially a refined, spiced wood—the iris and milk have retreated into a soft, skin-like veil, whilst the vanilla adds barely-perceptible sweetness. The musk grounds everything, creating a faint animalic warmth, but this is still a restrained fragrance, clinging close to skin with whisper-thin projection. It becomes less "scent" and more "the smell of someone's neck."
Santal Calling arrives as a study in restraint, a fragrance that whispers rather than declaims. Antoine Maisondieu has constructed something genuinely unusual here: a sandalwood composition that deliberately suppresses the creamy, buttery voluptuousness typically associated with the note. Instead, the Australian white sandalwood here feels skeletal, almost architectural—it's the woody scaffolding upon which everything else drapes.
The genius lies in the iris-milk interaction. Rather than the powdery, violet-tinged iris of classical perfumery, this iris reads as a cool, slightly soapy counterpoint that leans into the milk's inherent creaminess without ever becoming gourmand. Nutmeg arrives with a dry heat in the opening, a whisper of spice that prevents the composition from drifting into feminine softness. The bourbon vanilla settles beneath everything as a tether, preventing the scent from becoming too austere, yet never indulging in sweetness.
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3.9/5 (81)