Matière Première

Bois d'Ébène by Matière Première is a woody fragrance for women and men built around Paraguayan guaiac wood - smoked, resinous, faintly sweet - with juniper berries cutting the opening and cypriol and patchouli grounding the base in dry earth. There is no citrus, no flower and no sugar anywhere in it; the wood simply gets warmer and rounder as the hours pass. "Like stepping into an old library of polished wood and lingering smoke."

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Cologne Cédrat by Matière Première is a citrus aromatic fragrance for women and men - Italian citron and bergamot given the structure of an eau de parfum instead of the usual cologne, so the brightness lasts hours rather than minutes. Pink and black pepper keep the opening from turning sweet, and a dry mate tea base holds the whole thing together long after the fruit has burned off. "A perfect cologne in eau de parfum format - fresh and zesty without ever going sharp."

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Crystal Saffron by Matière Première is an amber woody fragrance for women and men that treats saffron as a mineral rather than a spice - cut with habanolide musk on top and set into ambroxan and incense underneath, so the opening reads cold, metallic and almost synthetic before warming into a suede-soft glow. It is the most modern thing the house makes and the loudest by a wide margin. "Opens like burnt rubber and sheet metal, dries down to mineral leather - an absolute monster of a performer."

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Encens Suave by Matière Première is an amber fragrance for women and men that takes Somali olibanum - the cold, mineral resin of a church at winter - and warms it from underneath with Madagascar vanilla, benzoin and labdanum. A coffee note on top keeps the sweetness from turning dessert-like, so the incense stays holy rather than gourmand, and the whole thing smells like shelter. "Warm resin, dry wood and the feeling of stepping out of the rain into an empty church."

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Falcon Leather by Matière Première is a leather fragrance for women and men built on birch tar - the tanning material itself, smoky and almost tarry - with saffron and labdanum lifting the opening and agarwood and benzoin turning the base resinous and sweet. It smells like a new leather jacket in a room where incense has just been put out, and it does not move far from that idea for the rest of the day. "Smoky, dark, smooth leather that smells expensive."

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French Flower by Matière Première is a white floral fragrance for women built from tuberose Aurélien Guichard grows himself on a hectare outside Grasse, captured twice - as absolute and as enfleurage pomade - to hold both the green solar side of the day flower and the creamy side of the night one. Pear and Nigerian ginger keep the opening juicy, orange blossom and Chinese tea keep it from turning heavy, and ambroxan pushes the whole field outward. "The intoxicating smell of a tuberose field at night - creamy, never camphorous, never indolic."

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Parisian Musc by Matière Première is a musky woody fragrance for women and men built on Peruvian ambrette - the vegetal musk, one of the most expensive materials in perfumery - which arrives creamy, faintly milky and oddly fruity, somewhere between fig skin and warm cotton. Virginia cedar keeps it from drifting into laundry territory and ambroxan gives it reach. It smells like skin, only better. "A creamy, milky, slightly woody green musk - far removed from anything ordinary."

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Radical Rose by Matière Première is a floral woody fragrance for women and men - Turkish rose stripped of every soft, powdery habit and rebuilt on saffron, pepper, patchouli and labdanum, so the flower arrives dark, spiced and faintly metallic instead of pretty. It opens sharp, settles onto an earthy amber floor within the hour, and stays there most of a day. "Bold, rich and almost untamed - a dark red rose blooming under moonlight."

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Santal Austral by Matière Première is a woody fragrance for women and men built on Australian sandalwood at a concentration most houses cannot afford - creamy, lactonic, almost edible - with iris lending a cool powdery lift on top and tonka bean and benzoin thickening the base underneath. It does not develop so much as settle, and it stays put for an extraordinarily long time. "Creamy, powdery sandalwood soaked in something close to gourmand - the performance is practically atomic."

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Santal Austral Extract by Matière Première is the 2024 extrait reading of the house sandalwood - same Australian santal, but almond milk pushes the creaminess further while black cardamom cuts a green, resinous line straight through it. The result is milkier and darker at once: sweeter in the first minutes, drier and stranger by the second hour, and less comfortable than the eau de parfum on purpose. "One of the best interpretations of sandalwood I have met - smooth, deep and hypnotic."

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