Messe de Minuit is the culmination of warm, smoky amber and citrus. It opens with a juicy and refreshing burst of sharp, rindy orange, lemon and bergamot followed by a thick dose of myrrh. The myrrh here is very dry and dusty, heavy and almost chewy but overall smells high quality and unique. The citric side of the scent is intensified by a zesty note of bitter citron, whilst the warming aspects are elevated through a spicy cinnamon and leathery labdanum. The smoky resinous vibe from the myrrh is then magnified by a dry incense and earthy patchouli. You’ve got 3 separate scent profiles all vying for attention in this fragrance - rindy citrus, smoky myrrh and warming amber are all present and powerful and yet it does seem to work. This is fragrance embodies old, wooden antiques and archaic churchy incense in a brilliant way.
I was insistently attempting to smell something in Messe de Minuit that I wouldn’t recognize anyway ….I’ve never been to midnight mass in my life. Once I realized this, but also that I was able to appreciate it any, way, I was able to connect it to something that I am quite well acquainted with: its subtly sour, musty scent reminded me of a shadowed corner of a used bookshop; towering piles of moldering books stacked on sagging rotted wood shelves….a corner that hasn’t seen sunlight in years, books that are touched by human hands rarely, if at all. All of this. Now it is a scent that makes sense to me.