Histoires de Parfums Petroleum (Edition Rare): fragrance review

All the colors of a bruise: black and blue, teal green edging out in purple, fading to rosy, ending in ochre yellow like ancient parchment.

The electrical buzz of arc-welding, fiery orange sparks filling out the skies, the rusty mine of the shipwreck. The air filled with a mineral, scorched feel. The plank-plank of cork wedges hitting the iron ore at the loading decks.

A leather cloth, all smeared with wax. The musty smell of the hold of an old ship. He had his hair loose and oily with sweat and ambery brilliantine. My hand aching from trying to hold tight onto the lower mast. I said "I'm hurt". He should have said, "honey, let me heal it", like Bruce. Only he never said it; not in so many words.

John Klingel

Petroleum by Histoires de Parfums is Gerald Ghislain's story on oudh, the prophylactic defensive rot on Aquillaria trees and its resinous, nutty, woody, complex scent. Infused with fizzy orange, musty patchouli and a prolonged furry, white musk aftertaste, lasting hours, purring after the roar, Petroleum is the gift of the earth in an unassuming bottle. This oudh étude surpasses many others, in a masterful cadenza of chromatic tonalities: from black and blue, teal green edging out in purple, fading to rosy, ending in ochre yellow like ancient parchment. The chromatics in a drop of "liquid gold", in an old bruise that still aches when pressed.