Olfactive Studio
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Sour cherry erupts with a crystalline tartness, immediately undercut by the bitter-green bite of coffee and warming spice heat. It's a jolt of flavoured alertness—almost mentholic in its sharpness—that catches you pleasantly off-guard.
The white tobacco settles into prominence, developing a creamy, slightly dusty character as cedar and patchouli emerge from beneath. Rosa Centifolia adds a delicate floral restraint, preventing the composition from becoming too earthy, whilst the spice accord mellows into warm cardamom.
Tonka bean and amber create a soft, caramelised base with musk providing barely-there skin-scent qualities. The sillage has retreated considerably by this stage, leaving only a sweet, woody shadow that hovers intimately close to the body.
Close Up arrives as a fragrance of deliberate contradictions—a white tobacco heart wrapped in the sharp brightness of sour cherry and green coffee. Rather than seeking to flatter, it opts for a kind of intimate confrontation. The perfumer Annick Ménardo has constructed something that sits closer to skin than air, a scent that whispers rather than projects. There's an almost tart quality to the opening moments, as though you've bitten into preserved cherry whilst grinding fresh coffee beans between your teeth, with cardamom and clove lending a peppery snap that prevents sweetness from ever taking complete control.
The white tobacco heart—that creamy, slightly powdery accord—becomes the fragrance's emotional anchor, softened by Rosa Centifolia's rosy whisper and grounded by Atlas Cedar's resinous, pencil-shaving dryness. Patchouli adds an earthy undercurrent without veering into heavy incense territory. This is the phase where Close Up reveals its true character: a refined, slightly austere composition that resists easy categorisation. It's not quite a gourmand, though tonka bean does introduce a subtle caramel sweetness; it's not quite aromatic, though the spice accord thrums throughout.
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3.4/5 (113)