Masque
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The ginger arrives with genuine bite, sharp and almost peppery, immediately joined by rhubarb's tart, slightly green character. It's bracing rather than pleasant—deliberately so—like biting into something unexpected that makes you pause and pay attention.
The vetiver trio emerges gradually, each layer adding depth without softening that initial spice. The leather surfaces around hour two, warm and slightly animalic, whilst the patchouli adds an earthy undertone that feels more like damp soil than sweetness. The smokiness intensifies as cedarwood and Java vetiver create a hazy, contemplative quality.
What lingers is purely vetiver and cedarwood, increasingly abstract and mineral-focused. The fragrance becomes almost pencil-shaving dry, with faint leather undertones and that persistent smokiness—intimate and close to the skin, something you catch only when you raise your wrist to your nose.
Masque II-III Hemingway is a fragrance that understands restraint—a quality Hemingway himself would have appreciated. Rather than announce itself, it arrives as a whisper of intrigue, a scent for those who find louder fragrances exhausting. Fanny Bal has constructed something genuinely architectural here: the ginger and rhubarb opening acts as a tart, almost savoury prologue before the composition settles into its true obsession—vetiver in triplicate.
What emerges is a study in how the same note can wear different faces. Java vetiver lends a smoky, almost burnt-sugar character, whilst Haitian vetiver contributes mineral coolness and green spice. The cedarwood doesn't play second fiddle; instead, it weaves through like smoke through linen, creating a woody framework that's simultaneously sharp and soft. Leather and patchouli ground everything in earthy sensuality without tipping into gourmandic territory. This is not a fragrance that wants to be pretty.
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4.0/5 (460)