Lubin
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The clary sage arrives with an almost narcotic green-herbal intensity, its slightly musty, tobacco-like facets amplified by bright bergamot and mandarin that quickly surrender to the advancing resins. Frankincense and elemi crash together in a cloud of lemony, pine-sharp smoke that's immediately warming and enveloping, whilst cardamom provides prickly, aromatic punctuation marks throughout.
The citrus and sage recede, allowing the fuller resinous chorus to take centre stage—frankincense settles into a glowing, golden haze whilst styrax brings its distinctive charred, leathery smokiness that borders on the phenolic. The cardamom remains surprisingly present, its green-spicy character now intertwined with the slightly medicinal, balsamic sweetness of elemi, creating an almost oud-like density without any actual agarwood.
What remains is a skin-close halo of ambery warmth where labdanum's leathery-sweet animalic quality melds seamlessly with patchouli's earthy, slightly chocolate-tinged depth. The vanilla never dominates but rather softens the edges, allowing faint wisps of smoke to continue drifting up from a base that smells like ancient wood and fossilised resin, intimate and comforting yet still unmistakably complex.
Akkad smells like standing at the threshold of an ancient incense trader's workshop, where amber light filters through smoke and dust motes dance above rough-hewn tables laden with resins. Delphine Thierry has orchestrated a masterclass in how spice and resin can speak to each other—the opening's clary sage brings an almost cannabis-like herbal bite that immediately contextualises the frankincense, preventing it from veering into churchy territory. This isn't polite incense; it's raw and slightly feral, with cardamom's eucalyptic sharpness cutting through the thickness whilst elemi adds a lemony, pine-like terpenic quality that keeps the composition from suffocating under its own weight.
What makes Akkad compelling is how it balances the sooty, almost burnt character of styrax against the creamy sweetness lurking beneath. The patchouli here isn't the head-shop variety but something earthy and slightly fermented, acting as a bridge between the smoking resins above and the amber-vanilla warmth below. There's genuine smoke in this composition—not metaphorical "smokiness" but the acrid, eye-watering quality of actual burning plant matter. Yet it never becomes aggressive or challenging, because that vanilla-labdanum base provides just enough honeyed balsamic sweetness to make the whole thing deeply comforting rather than confrontational.
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3.9/5 (129)