Sapphire

Sapphire is the darkest stone the house works with, and this is the darkest thing in the Gemstone range: a fragrance about the last hour of night rather than the first hour of morning.

It opens cold: night iris, bergamot chilled almost to bitterness, a thread of elemi. Then it closes over. Smoked oud and black leather sit at the centre without ever becoming sweet, and the drydown is ash wood, grey ambrette, and a vetiver so dark it reads as stone. Composed in a run of six hundred, and not repeated.