bdk Parfums
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The plum hits first—not fresh fruit but something preserved, sticky, laced with pink pepper's effervescent prickle and a squeeze of lemon that barely registers before vanishing. Within minutes, the rose absolute emerges through this jammy haze like crimson velvet unfurling, already tinged with chocolate's bitter edge and cinnamon's metallic warmth.
The chocolate note deepens into something between dark ganache and cocoa powder, wrapping itself around the rose until they become inseparable—a single, opulent accord. Cinnamon intensifies the heat whilst tobacco absolute begins its slow infiltration, bringing dried-leaf dryness and a genuinely smoky quality that cuts through the sweetness like a knife through fondant.
What remains is a skin-close amber-tobacco harmony, the patchouli's earthy chocolate merging with labdanum's resinous leather and vanilla's subtle cream. The rose persists as a ghost of itself, a musky-sweet memory threaded through smoke, whilst tobacco takes centre stage—warm, woody, contemplative, like the final hours of a fire reduced to embers.
Julien Rasquinet's Tabac Rose is a confectionery fever dream wrapped in tobacco leaves, where Turkish rose absolute drowns luxuriously in chocolate ganache before being rolled in pipe tobacco. This isn't the polite rose of English gardens—it's a jammy, almost overripe bloom macerated with Madagascan pink pepper that adds a fizzing, resinous bite rather than straightforward heat. The plum in the opening brings a boozy, preserved-fruit sweetness that immediately signals this rose won't play innocent, whilst the cinnamon weaves through like molten copper wire, simultaneously warming and sharpening everything it touches.
What makes this fragrance compelling is how the sweetness never tips into dessert territory, constantly anchored by the gravitas of Balkans tobacco absolute—earthy, slightly bitter, genuinely smoky rather than synthetic. The labdanum provides a leathery, ambered resin that feels like the inside of an antique wooden box lined with velvet, whilst Indonesian patchouli adds a dark chocolate earthiness that reinforces rather than competes with the actual chocolate note. This is a scent for those who find straight florals tedious and gourmands cloying, but who still crave richness and drama.
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3.6/5 (491)