Yves Saint Laurent
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Black tea arrives with all its smoky, tannic astringency, like Earl Grey brewed too strong and left to cool. There's an immediate textural quality, dry and slightly powdery, as the suede accord begins its quiet introduction beneath the tea's aromatic canopy.
The orris butter emerges as the true protagonist, its earthy-rooty character meeting the suede in a perfect marriage of powder and skin. Jasmine weaves through with surprising subtlety, adding warmth rather than florality, whilst frankincense begins laying down its resinous foundations like underpainting on canvas.
Vanilla and woods create something close to human skin—warm, slightly sweet, indefinably comforting. The leather has softened to little more than a textural memory, whilst the frankincense persists as a gentle incense ghost, ensuring this never quite becomes a simple skin scent but maintains its architectural integrity.
Velours is the scent of a gentleman's smoking jacket soaked in Lapsang Souchong, then abandoned in a sandalwood-lined wardrobe for decades. Carlos Benaïm has crafted something that smells genuinely vintage without resorting to dusty aldehydes—instead, he's used black tea's natural tannins to create that sense of aged textiles. The leather here isn't animalic or petrol-tinged; it's the buttery suede accord meeting orris butter in a whisper of chamois cloth and iris root, creating something closer to doeskin gloves than motorcycle jackets.
What makes Velours compelling is how the jasmine refuses to turn this into a floral fragrance. Instead, it lends an indolic warmth that makes the suede feel lived-in, almost body-temperature. The frankincense doesn't announce itself as church incense but rather as a resinous skeleton that holds the composition's powdery elements in place, preventing the orris from floating off into abstraction. Bourbon vanilla in the base is crucially restrained—it sweetens without gourmandise, more akin to vanilla-scented tobacco than crème anglaise.
Add fragrances to your collection and unlock your personalised scent DNA, note map, and shareable identity card.
3.9/5 (158)