Laboratorio Olfattivo
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
All three peppers arrive simultaneously, creating a complex heat matrix—pink pepper's berry-wine facets, Sichuan's tongue-numbing tingle, and cardamom's eucalyptic sharpness forming a triumvirate that dominates the first quarter-hour. Bergamot flickers briefly underneath, more textural than olfactive, before the cashmeran begins its smooth, woody expansion. The vanilla is already whispering at the edges, but it's restrained, held back by the aggressive spice attack.
The cinnamon emerges properly now, not the red-hot cinnamon of bakeries but something drier, almost dusty, mingling with sandalwood's creamy woodiness to create a textural middle ground. Cashmeran takes centre stage, that distinctive ironed-cotton-and-wood effect dominating, whilst the peppers recede to a persistent tingle rather than outright heat. The vanilla absolute begins asserting itself, its dark, almost caramellic character threading through the woods without sweetening them excessively.
What remains is a skin-close haze of vanillic amber with that persistent woody-musky backbone from the timbersilk and karmawood combination. The smokiness becomes most apparent here, a subtle charred quality that keeps the sweetness in check. It's warm and enveloping but never cloying, the ghost of pepper spice still providing enough edge to prevent this from collapsing into generic vanilla-wood territory.
Vanhera is a study in contrasts—a fragrance that takes the familiar comfort of woody vanillas and subjects it to a peppercorn interrogation. Luca Maffei has orchestrated a composition where three distinct peppers (pink, Sichuan, cardamom functioning as the third) create a tingling, almost numbing effect against the creamy sweetness below. This isn't the straightforward gourmand you might expect from that vanilla absolute; the interplay between cinnamon bark's volatile spice and sandalwood's creamy lactones is constantly disrupted by the resinous character of karmawood and the almost plasticky smoothness of cashmeran. There's a deliberate smokiness woven throughout, not from incense or birch tar, but from the way these woody-ambery molecules converge and create a subtle charred effect at the edges. The bergamot adds little more than a brief citric lift before retreating, leaving the stage to that persistent pepper-wood-vanilla trinity. This is for someone who finds linear vanilla woods tedious, who wants their comfort scents to have teeth. It works beautifully in the transitional seasons when you want warmth without weight, and it wears particularly well on those who run warm—the peppers keep it from becoming too close or cloying. Vanhera sits in that curious space between cosy and confrontational, sweet but never saccharine, woody but refusing to play the dignified sandalwood gentleman. It's a scent that knows exactly what it wants to be: familiar enough to be approachable, disruptive enough to be interesting.
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