Le Labo
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Raw patchouli leaf surges forward with almost aggressive immediacy, dark and mineral-edged, before birch adds a subtle, papery smokiness that transforms the opening from simple earth into something vaguely smouldering—as if you've just lit an artisanal incense stick in a room lined with aged wood.
The styrax softens into the composition around the two-hour mark, introducing creamy, almost anise-like undertones that wrestle with the woody skeleton. The fragrance becomes noticeably drier here, the leather accord emerging as a supporting player that whispers of aged suede jackets and worn leather journals.
By the fourth hour, vanilla and the remaining woody base settle into a powdery, almost tobacco-like residue that lacks significant projection. It becomes a skin scent—intimate and fading—retaining the earthy character but shedding most olfactory aggression, dissolving into a warm, muted hum rather than a statement.
Patchouli 24 is a fragrance that refuses to whisper. It announces itself with the brazen confidence of someone who knows precisely what they are and doesn't much care whether you're prepared for it. Annick Ménardo has constructed something defiantly unglamorous here—a composition where patchouli doesn't merely lurk in the base, orchestrating from the shadows, but instead commandeers the entire olfactory stage from first spray.
The genius lies in how the supporting cast intensifies rather than softens this earthiness. Birch and styrax in the heart don't civilise the patchouli; instead, they amplify its smoky, almost charred character, adding a resinous thickness that clings. Vanilla arrives in the base not as sweetening grace but as a grounding force, a creamy counterweight that prevents the composition from becoming purely austere. The leather accord—present but not dominant—lends an almost animalic quality, something worn and lived-in.
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3.7/5 (138)