Initio Parfums Prives
Initio Parfums Prives
8.8k votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The cognac and rum hit simultaneously—a boozy whoosh that's both sweet and astringent, like huffing the air above a glass of barrel-aged spirit. Tobacco leaf emerges almost immediately, not smoky but green-brown and resinous, whilst the saffron adds an iodine-like metallic quality that keeps everything from smelling like a dessert trolley.
The vanilla-cinnamon pairing moves to the fore, but it's a dark, sticky vanilla that's been heated with bark spices until it's gone mahogany-coloured in your mind. The labdanum starts weaving through, adding an amber-resin depth that makes the whole composition smell like sweetened pipe tobacco that's been stored in a wooden humidor lined with vanilla pods. The hedione creates this gorgeous diffusive halo—you're not smelling jasmine, but everything radiates outward with persistent warmth.
What remains is a skin-close veil of sandalwood, amber, and that gorgeous labdanum-vanilla hybrid that smells like salted caramel crossed with leather. The tobacco becomes abstract now—more of a woody-sweet impression than an actual note—whilst the rum accord lingers as a faintly boozy sweetness that never quite disappears. It's warm, enveloping, and smells expensive in that indefinable way only sandalwood and aged resins can manage.
Side Effect opens like a bottle of aged cognac knocked over in a Levantine spice souk—there's an immediate rush of boozy warmth that's almost medicinal in its intensity before the tobacco and rum create this beautiful, resinous haze. This isn't polite vanilla; it's the sticky-sweet collaboration between overproof rum, dark tobacco leaf, and a vanilla that's been steeped in cinnamon bark until it's gone auburn and faintly bitter. The saffron here acts as a metallic bridge between the spirit-soaked opening and the creamy heart, giving everything a leathery, slightly saline quality that prevents the sweetness from becoming cloying.
What's remarkable is how the hedione—that radiant jasmine ketone—sits underneath all this density, creating lift and diffusion without the composition ever smelling floral. It's the reason Side Effect projects with such authority whilst still maintaining a kind of intimacy, like wearing someone else's well-loved leather jacket that still holds the scent of their preferred spirit. The sandalwood and labdanum in the base add a honeyed, almost balsamic quality that makes the tobacco accord smell like it's been cured with vanilla pods.
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4.3/5 (8.9k)