Santal 33

Santal 33 arrives like a leather jacket draped over a weathered wooden chair, the scent memory of smoke and skin still clinging to its creases. Frank Voelkl has composed something simultaneously raw and refined, where Australian sandalwood meets violet in an embrace that shouldn't work but does—the floral note cutting through the wood's creaminess with an almost metallic, ionone-rich sharpness. This is sandalwood stripped of its incense-heavy reverence, made gritty and contemporary through leather that's more saddle than suede, and papyrus that adds an almost pickled, green facet to the opening salvo. The cardamom weaves through it all like static electricity, creating a spiced frisson that never quite settles into warmth.

What makes this fragrance compelling isn't novelty—woody musks dominated the early 2010s—but rather its specific proportions. The cedar duo (Virginian and Atlas) provides architectural backbone without going full pencil shavings, whilst iris in the base lends that subtle carrot-seed earthiness that grounds the musk rather than sweetening it. The amber accord here reads more as papery labdanum than resinous benzoin, maintaining the composition's lean, somewhat ascetic character. This is the scent of art directors in Bushwick lofts, of minimalist interiors where every object is considered, of people who've cultivated taste into identity. It's deliberately unisex in that studied, cost-no-object way—less about bridging gender divides than rendering them irrelevant through sheer confidence of vision. Best worn when you want your presence noted but not announced.