Complex | Handmade vegan & refillable alternative | No.542
Main accords : Amber, leathery, aromatic, smoky, fresh spicy, herbal, balsamic, musky, oud, warm spicy
This isn’t a fragrance for the faint-hearted. It’s strong, punchy and has the capacity to easily blow you away! Meant to represent the sensuous combination of oud and synthetic leather combining woods, resins, and musk. It’s highly unusual and unique, and at first, smells incredibly earthy – by far the earthiest fragrance we have. Almost as if someone has just dug up a piece of soil and exposed the roots of what was growing beneath. Later, however, it begins to change and more of the floral and resin notes peek out from below, leaving an almost sweet, fruity aftertaste that blends in with the leathery, woody notes. It has incredible projection – just a couple of sprays can easily fill a room – and lasts all day. As the name suggests, this perfume is very complex and not to be judged on first impressions. Highly unique, unisex, and not in the slightest bit commercial.
No.542 – Natural alternative cruelty-free vegan equivalent to Complex by Boadicea the Victorious
Thomas Martin –
Ok, so this one’s a grower and in-no-way for everyone but it’s immediately striking and has almost imperceptibly become one my main go-to’s for daytime wear. Making the usual allowances for subjectivity: no, it doesn’t strike me as ESPECIALLY complex, although neither is its impression two-dimensional or superficial. What it is is downright strange: it smells a bit like wet, earthy grass or weeds. Closer inspection, and the usual mellowing effect that comes with the dry-down, reveals leathery and incense notes, but the prevailing impression for me is of soggy old Mother Nature. The extent to which this this strikes you as a good thing will depend on your temperament and your politics, but I will say this: if at first you don’t like it, give it a chance to grow on you, like the moist green moss it smells like. I’ve been wearing it on and off for three weeks and it still strikes me as (compellingly) bizarre but, for whatever reason, I’m more-or-less won over. Maybe it speaks to the atavistic child in me that would rather be out playing in the schmutz and brushing off bugs than pseudo-adulting in front of a computer screen. TLDR: striking, weird, marshy, green, niche. Give it a punt, you might love it.