Chimaera

Chimaera announces itself with the ferocity its mythological namesake demands—a head-spinning collision of saffron's metallic warmth and bay leaf's medicinal sharpness, all wrapped in an accord that reads as white leather dressed in black pepper. Paolo Terenzi has orchestrated something genuinely confrontational here, threading tolu balsam's vanilla-tinged sweetness through the opening spice to prevent total olfactory warfare. The composition pivots on frankincense, which acts as both mediator and amplifier, its pine-resin brightness allowing the peculiar marriage of red pepper and honey to make perfect sense whilst anchoring the floral elements—black magnolia's rubber-tinged darkness, carnation's clove-inflected spice—into a cohesive whole. This isn't a fragrance that whispers; it's built for those who relish complexity and aren't afraid of smoke signals. The base reveals Terenzi's true intention: copaiba balsam and benzoin create a resinous backbone that's simultaneously sweet and austere, whilst the oud remains surprisingly polite, its barnyard tendencies tempered by pine's clean sharpness and cashmere wood's musky softness. Caramel threatens to tip things gourmand but instead reads as burnt sugar, bitter at the edges. The leather never leaves, developing from that initial white brightness into something more worn, tobacco-stained, lived-in. This is for the fragrance obsessive who's exhausted the obvious spicy orientals and wants something with teeth—an evening scent that demands attention, worn by someone who treats fragrance as statement rather than accessory.