Start with Side Effect, a highly sought after blend that stirs the feeling of addiction with generous lashings of cinnamon, rum, saffron and tobacco. The blend is direct and effective, immediately beguiling and deeply satisfying. While Rehab operates on the principle of smoothness, folding lavender and woods together like a lamination of materials - layering upon layer creating strength. But this is a calming strength, sturdy and padded. It is soft and hard all at once. It clings like warmth on skin, confident and unhurried, with an alluring kind of ease.
Paragon develops this impression further with a sense of purification. Notes of clary sage and palo santo form a persistent note of clean smokiness - grounded in lavender and oud. Between a feather and a stone, Paragon is a textural feast. A quiet achievement. Musk Therapy fronts Initio’s attitude to the molecular world of odours, and has here created an impressive and thick sculptural complex of white musks. Singular from afar but deeply complex up close, embroidered all-over with sparks of citrus and blackcurrant, white florals, all melting into sandalwood.
Woody force and intensity is achieved by way of agarwood, the central feature of Oud For Greatness. Certainly when it’s constructed like this, it speaks to the clear-voiced power of nature, built with spices and rounded to do away with any of its harsh edges. This construction becomes a pedestal for the wearer to stand tall upon; an imbue of confidence. While Atomic Rose overdoses extracts of Turkish and Bulgarian rose to become a philtre. Its name is perfect: richly potent and intoxicating, full and bare, married to vanilla and jasmine, it is a seduction that rises to a crescendo - timid and soft at first, then finally carrying everything in its sillage as if cast by a spell. For those who crave the richest version of rose.