Bois d'Ascèse began with a specific memory: a wooden church in the hills of New South Wales, the countryside burning around it. Naomi Goodsir grew up with that landscape and its particular smell -- smoke, dry wood, incense carrying on hot air. It is also a homage to her family's Scottish origins. Both are present in the bottle.

Angelica and Italian mandarin open it -- briefly bright before the heart takes over. Incense from Somalia, blond tobacco and whisky form the core: smoky, dry and deliberate. Oakmoss, musk and cade wood close it out, the cade almost burnt, extending the smoke into something that stays.

Austere and arresting. Sits close at first, opens with warmth over time.

Head Notes: Angelica, Italian Mandarin Heart Notes: Incense, Blond Tobacco, Whisky Base Notes: Oakmoss, Musk, Cade Wood

Perfumer: Julien Rasquinet (2012). Genderless. Eau de Parfum. 50ml.

Naomi Goodsir is a Sydney-born, Paris-based designer who moved into fragrance with the same eye she brought to millinery -- obsessive, precise, and unconcerned with convention. Each scent in the range is built around an image or a memory strong enough to anchor a composition. We stock Naomi Goodsir because she is one of the few perfumers working at this level with a direct line back to Australia, and because the range is genuinely hard to find outside of specialist fragrance retail.