Unum Ennui Noir Extrait de Parfum 100ml

Filippo Sorcinelli Unum Ennui Noir Extrait de Parfum 100ml is a dark, powdery lavender, and it is the kind of perfume that makes more sense once you know what its maker does for a living.

Lavender leads, but not the clean barbershop version. Paired with myrtle, which is green, resinous and slightly bitter in the Mediterranean manner, it reads cooler and more medicinal, almost like a cupboard of dried herbs rather than a soap. That opening is austere on purpose. Heliotrope is the pivot. It is powdery and soft with a faint bitterness behind the sweetness, and set against cedarwood, which is dry and sharp as a sharpened pencil, it gives the middle an odd quality of dust in still air. Vanilla, patchouli and vetiver then take it down: the vanilla restrained rather than sweet, the patchouli dark and earthy, the vetiver rooty and faintly smoky. Seven materials, and they are arranged for atmosphere rather than for prettiness.

At extrait strength this lasts a long time and should be applied with a light hand, since the powder and the resins build quickly. One spray at the collar will carry an evening, and the scent stays reasonably close to the body after the first hour rather than filling a room.

It is unisex, better in cold weather, and better after dark. Anyone who likes perfume to feel solemn will understand it immediately; anyone looking for something cheerful should look elsewhere.

Filippo Sorcinelli works from Mondolfo in the Marche and is an organist and photographer as well as a designer. He founded the LAVS atelier in 2001 to make liturgical vestments and furnishings by hand, and that work reached the Vatican's Office of Liturgical Celebrations, including vestments for Pope Benedict XVI and for the inaugural Mass of Pope Francis in 2013. Perfume followed in 2014, when the first UNUM fragrance was released as a tribute to the atelier, and his scents draw on church interiors, Gothic architecture and organ music, which explains why they tend to be solemn rather than pretty.