Dulcet Fixation

Image:

A cozy English-style café-patisserie on a snowy December evening, with arched windows overlooking a twilight cityscape, vintage leather armchairs, and elaborate cakes displayed on wooden tables.

Description of notes:

What we have here is the result of a fusion of gourmand notes with warm oriental amber and leather chypre accords. Overall, the fragrance evokes a Christmas gingerbread with its characteristic explosion of spice and sweet nuances, crafted using a multi-layered technique that keeps the scent from becoming monotonous—it shifts like a kaleidoscope before your eyes, revealing now one facet, then another. The fragrance is highly complex and changes in flashes like a chameleon, displaying first one dimension, then another. An attentive observer may discover gourmand nuances of prune, blueberry, nuts, black tea, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, tonka beans, cream, ginger cookies, star anise, cumin, and lavender—though these are not declared as principal notes.

The opening is quite fresh and citrusy with notes of orange and bergamot, which quickly begin to play with nuances of blackcurrant, cinnamon, sage, coriander, myrtle, myrrh, and frankincense. The terpenic notes of frankincense create the illusion of amber’s presence in the top notes, which seems to disappear quickly, ensuring scene transitions and providing a gradual shift toward the warm oriental heart.

The heart unfolds with oriental incense notes accompanied by a powerful radial woody-ambery aura, where one can detect notes of burning church incense smoke. Vetiver and vintage leather in the background create a sense of comfort and coziness, providing warmth close to the skin.

The base is where amber returns to the stage with full force and in all its glory. Now amber fully manifests its qualities in the form of diffusive woody notes, dry fossilized amber, and animalic ambergris. White sandalwood and old wood complete the fragrance, making it more sensual.

History of Creation:

The first day of winter. An exhilarating time. The best opportunity to put on headphones and walk along the foggy slopes of the Dnipro River in the twilight of a winter day, while it still breathes with autumn warmth. For me, this has always been a special time—soon my birthday, then Christmas, New Year, and the following holidays. As usual, I took days off during this period to spend them with a thermos of tea on the shore of the river, scattered with fallen leaves, while weather permitting. The local continental climate can be quite harsh at this time—sometimes the city is blanketed with snow by my birthday in mid-December.

Today is such a day, and I decided to warm up in an English-style café-patisserie with magnificent large, beautifully decorated cakes, nut and banana muffins, and homemade cookies. The café is cozily nestled in the archway of a building, occupying two floors, which gave the second floor a beautiful arched window overlooking the winter city (if you’re interested, you can look up “Double Decker Dnipro”). I sat at the bar counter right in front of the window with a cup of hot cocoa and a plate with a slice of Red Velvet cake, watching snow fall outside the twilight window.

This vintage atmosphere deeply touched my soul: tables made of old solid wood, served with thick ceramic plates and English-style teapots, magnificent large armchairs upholstered in aged leather, and of course the aroma of coffee, pastries, and confections. I’ve never encountered cakes of this caliber in establishments throughout all of Europe since. I was stirred by an extraordinarily refined sense of taste and balance in everything: from the sweetness and flavor of desserts to the décor of the space.

Christmas, of course, I also spent here, surrounded by branches of blue spruce and green wintergreen boughs with red berries. As well as practically the entire December and many more winter evenings—with a cup of coffee and a plate with a slice of yet another cake. It was an absolutely unique time. A time of weakness before an atmosphere accompanied by light electronic music, and a fixation on sweets.