The Nose Behind
The Nose Behind
249 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Rum and davana collide in a bruised-fruit sweetness that's immediately complicated by the mineral greenness of clary sage and an earthy carrot note that smells oddly vegetal, almost like you've crushed stems between your fingers. It's disorienting in the best way—tropical but not cheerful, herbal but not fresh, sweet but somehow savoury at the edges.
The lily emerges with a creamy floralcy that's quickly wrapped in cedarwood's pencil-shaving dryness, whilst the curry leaf begins its slow infiltration, adding a bitter-aromatic quality that makes everything feel spiced and slightly smoky. Coconut whispers rather than shouts, creating a lactonic softness that supports rather than dominates, whilst tobacco leaf adds a leathery-green facet that keeps the composition from settling into anything predictable.
What remains is a musky, amber-soaked skin scent where honey-sweetened tobacco mingles with vetiver's earthy rootedness and pine's resinous bite, the oud adding a medicinal-woody undertone that prevents the vanilla from going cuddly. The raspberry has vanished entirely, leaving behind only a phantom fruitiness that haunts the warm, slightly animalic base—less beachy abandon, more the memory of it on unwashed skin.
Miami South Beach is a fragrance caught between two identities—part sun-drenched hedonism, part incense-laden mystery. The opening salvo of rum-soaked davana and herbal clary sage creates an intoxicating haze that smells like sticky heat and botanical peculiarity, whilst an unexpected carrot note adds an earthy, almost root-vegetable sweetness that grounds the boozy exuberance. This isn't the Miami of pastels and art deco; it's the Miami of afternoon storms, night markets, and that peculiar tropical gothic that haunts Florida's edges.
The progression into lily and cedarwood feels almost quaint by comparison, until the base reveals its true intentions: a curry leaf and oud combination that borders on savoury, threading through coconut, tobacco, and honey like smoke through humid air. Christian Carbonnel has orchestrated something genuinely odd here—the coconut never goes full tanning oil, the curry remains aromatic rather than culinary, and the oud plays supporting actor rather than star. Raspberry flickers in and out like neon reflected in puddles, whilst vetiver and pine add a green-wood density that prevents the vanilla and amber from tipping into confectionery.
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3.8/5 (102)