Frapin
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Cumin hits first with almost aggressive spiciness, cutting through bright grapefruit and a brief flash of green neroli. The effect is savoury-citrus rather than fresh-citrus, immediately establishing that this won't be a conventional bright opening—it's already complicated, slightly dusty, slightly challenging.
As the citrus recedes over the first hour, cinnamon and nutmeg emerge with frankincense providing a resinous backbone that prevents any sweetness. Orange blossom integrates here but stays austere, lending a floral-spiced complexity rather than softness. The fragrance becomes warmer and more textured, its savoury character now threaded through with spiced-floral elements.
Tobacco and benzoin anchor everything into a soft, burnished woody-smoky finish where vanilla adds a gentle warmth without undoing the composition's inherent seriousness. What remains is closer to amyris wood and dried herbs than to conventional vanilla-base sweetness—intimate, slightly smoky, and distinctly aged.
Terre de Sarment arrives not as a fresh fragrance but as a declaration of intent—a deliberately earthy, spiced composition that refuses the easy comfort of citrus brightness. Beatrice Cointreau has constructed something deliberately unglamorous here, where the cumin-grapefruit opening immediately establishes a savoury, almost culinary character that most contemporary fragrances would soften or obscure. The interplay between that peppery cumin and the neroli is crucial: rather than the typical sparkling citrus-floral pairing, this creates something vaguely unsettling, as though you've walked into a spice bazaar at dusk.
What makes this truly compelling is how the heart refuses to sweeten the proposition. Cinnamon and nutmeg don't arrive as gourmand flourishes but as architectural elements, their astringency kept deliberately sharp by the frankincense's resinous, almost medicinal presence. The orange blossom here functions differently than expected—it's rendered drier, less honeyed, anchored by that frankincense rather than floating upward into prettiness. The base layer of tobacco and benzoin then roots everything into something closer to leather and dried hay than to conventional vanilla-tonka warmth.
Add fragrances to your collection and unlock your personalised scent DNA, note map, and shareable identity card.
3.9/5 (1.0k)