Penhaligon's
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Frankincense erupts with ecclesiastical intensity, sharp and resinous, immediately establishing a monastic severity. The spice accord arrives almost instantaneously, crackling with peppery heat that makes the resin feel even more austere and temple-like.
The leather emerges wounded and smoky, the frankincense smoke now wrapping around hide that smells singed rather than supple. The woody backbone strengthens here, with vetiver beginning to show its grassy-mineral character beneath the charred leather, creating an almost three-dimensional smoky accord that feels genuinely compelling for a brief, glorious window.
What remains is skeletal and fading—mostly ambroxan's cool, slightly soapy amber-grey quality intertwined with dry vetiver and residual smoke. The leather fades to a whisper, leaving you with essentially vetiver and mineral ambroxan on skin, the drama having largely evaporated, which explains the longevity concerns entirely.
Terrible Teddy is a fragrance that lives up to its deliberately antagonistic name—it's curmudgeonly, uncompromising, and utterly indifferent to pleasing everyone. Quentin Bisch has crafted something that feels less like a wearable perfume and more like a deliberate provocation, a scent that announces itself with the austere clarity of frankincense resin before pivoting sharply into smoky leather territory.
The leather note here isn't the polished, animalic leather of classical fougères; it reads almost burnt, as though it's been singed by the very frankincense smoke that precedes it. This interaction between the resinous, almost ecclesiastical top and the charred hide of the heart creates an intensely masculine character—or rather, a scent that refuses gender boundaries through sheer forceful presence rather than by attempting neutrality. It smells like the interior of a tobacco merchant's shop mixed with temple incense, with ambroxan and vetiver anchoring everything into a woody, slightly peppery drydown that suggests distant vetiver fields obscured by smoke.
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3.6/5 (309)