Marquis de Sade–Attack the Sun.

On first blind sniff, I get an earthy animalic lemon with some smoky cedar resin. It’s marvelous, almost like wet oil paints–complex and changing with a hint of sweetness. Even my cat got nosy.

So I looked up the description, and discovered it’s pure labdanum. Rock-rose, and that’s all. The designer apparently doesn’t like it, so he made a solifleur in an attempt at immersion therapy.

Labdanum is at the heart of two of my favorites by LUSH, Tank Battle and Rentless, grounding the clove and the aniseed. On its own, it becomes airier, balsamic and musky, and decadent.

Projects at arms length for an hour, and on the skin for three more.

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“How many times, good God, have I not wished it were possible to attack the sun, to deprive the universe of it, or to use it to set the world ablaze –” Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom

Another riff on the decadent Marquis: