Filippo Sorcinelli
Filippo Sorcinelli
208 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Myrtle and lavender create an austere, almost medicinal introduction—there's camphor, bitter green stems, and a herbal quality that refuses to play pretty. The spice accord manifests as a prickle rather than a flourish, suggesting pepper and perhaps cardamom lurking beneath the aromatics. It's deliberately stark, like entering a monk's cell where incense has burned for decades.
Cedarwood's dry, woody rasp becomes the canvas upon which heliotrope paints its powdery, marzipan-adjacent sweetness, creating an intriguing tension between austere and comforting. The composition grows textured here, almost tactile—you can nearly feel the grain of the wood, the softness of the powder. The earthiness begins its slow rise, grounding what could have become too ethereal.
Patchouli and vetiver dominate, earthy and dark, with vanilla offering only the faintest suggestion of sweetness—less confection, more the memory of pleasure. The woods have gone smoky now, almost ashen, whilst that persistent spice accord continues to add dimensionality without ever stepping forward. What remains is contemplative, shadowy, and utterly committed to its melancholic vision.
Ennui_noir reads like a love letter to malaise—that peculiarly refined exhaustion that comes from having seen too much, felt too deeply. Filippo Sorcinelli, the liturgical vestment maker turned perfumer, opens with myrtle's bitter-green camphor cut through with lavender's herbal aromatics, neither fresh nor particularly comforting. This is lavender stripped of its spa associations, rendered almost medicinal when it collides with myrtle's resinous bite. The heart shifts into something altogether more complicated: cedarwood's dry pencil shavings meet heliotrope's almond-tinged powder, creating a texture that feels like velvet worn thin at the elbows. There's something deliberately faded here, as though the fragrance itself is world-weary.
The base is where ennui_noir earns its name. Patchouli arrives earthy and unsweet, its chocolate facets held firmly in check, whilst vetiver adds a smoky, almost ashen quality. Vanilla threads through—not as gourmand comfort, but as a ghostly sweetness that makes the darker elements more melancholic rather than less. The spice accord never announces itself explicitly; instead, it hums beneath the composition, adding warmth without heat, pepper without bite. This is a fragrance for those who've outgrown the need to make an entrance, who prefer the back booth at the gallery opening, who understand that true elegance often wears black. It suits late evenings, contemplative moods, the particular satisfaction of being alone in good company. Intellectually engaging rather than emotionally demonstrative, ennui_noir flatters those who think of fragrance as philosophy rather than accessory.
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3.9/5 (98)