Toskovat fragrances are atmospheric like no other, and demonstrate David-Lev’s sensitivity to the moods of the different seasons. Shaded with incredible nuance, one enters into the space created by these fragrances that are already in the midst of action - these are stories already underway, integrated into the proceedings. At times one might feel like a distant observer, or are completely enmeshed in the scenario.
Forlorn Embers & Black Reigns is a landscape of autumn. It is an invitation into the woods at dusk, stippled with decaying leaves and branches, mixing low sunlight and fluffy blankets of shadow. Much of this feeling is the result of many layered materials that contain memories of warmth, smoke, and fire: the charred oak casks housing aged spirit, caramel, ash, tobacco, and even marron glace and s’mores. Gently sweet and smoky, Forlorn Embers finishes with deep and rounded woody notes scented with carob and truffle, emphasising earthiness. Empty Wishes Well is wintery and gothic, with a scene veiled in a melancholy tone of grey. It is the unmistakable scent of the air thick with ozone and soil that has been sifted after many years of stillness. Operating on the paradox of dry yet wet, Empty Wishes Well shivers with the smell of earth, rocks, minerals, and stones - cemented in the ground with vetiver, sage, myrrh, patchouli, and galbanum.
Last Birthday Cake draws us in with its familiar sweetness, inviting us to see ourselves in this image of cake - finding the impression that pulls most at the heartstrings. The result is a tempting sweetness - rich with many gourmand impressions that range from milk to chocolate, boozy to spongy, nutty to fruity. There is the dusty feeling of cocoa, as well as the biscuity malty sensation of toasted bran and meal. And underneath all of this decadence is something inedible - some smoke from incense and gunpowder alike - it adds definite intrigue to an otherwise straight gourmand scent. Born Screaming is parodical and superbly executed, a response to the overblown and disproportional messaging of the cherry trend. Just a good fruity fragrance, that is essential, and here David-Lev exaggerates its red hue with the sharpness of gooseberry and blackberry, and a fantasy accord of tingly energy drink. A floral heart of rose, heliotrope, boronia, freesia, and datura adds an unexpected thump of elegance that is set against this sweetness. Finally, a lingering feeling of latex and plastic dvd cases - a ‘synthy’ effect - ensures that this cherry note is always touched by a feeling of the artificial. It is good humour alongside excellent perfumery.
Anarchist A_ is a work of provocation, smothering the wearer first with its intense clinical cool, where the scent of plastic converges with incense. It’s a matter of impressions and not notes here: a tranquil body of water, a sheet of metal, iridescent ink. Flowers in a vase of rubbing alcohol, stale water in a marble stoop, snow that is neither solid nor liquid, a recently snuffed candle, long tendrils of incense smoke, money impregnated with the oil of our fingers. Experience is primary here, and this fragrance with notes of ‘holy water’, credit cards, priest’s robes, candle wax, and snow certainly triggers the imagination as it works to make sense of what it’s smelling. Inexcusable Evil is something of a notorious fragrance, often appearing on the ‘ultra-niche’ list of bold perfumery. It’s no easy perfume, which shocks in the forceful, and perhaps violent, expression. The scent charges out of the bottle with the piercing and sterile scent of iodine and cold metal: it is the instant smell of hospitals and clinics, wound dressing, antiseptic and disinfectants. The fragrance is brutally matter-of-fact; a sort of existential poetry of the macabre that triggers discomfort. It is a scent without sweetness, sapped further with gunpowder notes, ash, and ozone. Inexcusable Evil is a commentary that speaks through scent.
