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I think this is something expected from Beaufort if you are familiar with the brands aesthetic. Smoky, brooding, naturalistic, earthy it's all here in abundance. As spiky as a Hawksmoor church spire with a rougher incense accord, Papyrus, birch tar smoke and black pepper but there's something inherently creamy and rounded about it. This doesn't have the dynamic, juxtapositions of Tonnere or Iron Duke but everything is complementary and a pleasure to wear. It's not a fragrance where the notes are masked in smoke, the Tar element being handled with a deftness of touch. Kyphi is a Ancient Egyptian incense blend I believe (I've seen a odour historian selling it) seems to have a light camphor and sharpness of Frankincense and the cream of sweeter soap myrrh. Vetiver is ever present and even though much more rounded and clearly better than anything I could do, it's similar in style to something I've been working on for several months. Heartening as it's clearly a good direction and my first experience of British perfumer Pia Long. It's decent.
You are in Hawksmoor's Spitalfields church, the one with the austere, looming architecture and souce of sometimes intriguing and sometimes downright silly occult conspiracy theories.
Inside, it's smoky, dark and cold because someone has turned out the lights. Perhaps it's the priest, who has nipped outside for a quick fag. You are dressed in leather, sucking on an aniseed drop and for some reason are clutching a sheaf of old, yellowed newspapers. The smell of burnt incense has impregnated the stone walls. There is no-one else in the building but, ominously, there is sound of movement from the vauts below.
This is rather gorgeous. Tamer in intensity than some of the others in the Beaufort range, this is, a bit like the church that inspired it, at first cold and forbidding, but gains in wamth as it dries down, before the stone coldness rushes back. One of my favourites in the Beaufort range, and one of the very few I would consider wearing in a work environment.