Tam Dao (Diptyque, 2003)

I have a number of other things half-written or nearly finished on my desktop: so speaking of Tam Dao today wasn’t in schedule. I should’ve posted pictures of Thursday’s meeting at Caleri’s (ww.mentelocale.it on the homepage, righthand), perhaps with a little report of the meeting (the most interesting so far); I also wanted to post the visual of Hiroshima Mon Amour with my emotional output after sniffing Stephane’s almost finished draft. And then there's the article issued on “Spray” just to show off a little bit. All this in theory. Instead, in the last weeks as I was preparing the lecture on woody base perfumes, I discovered Tam Dao (Diptyque) and ... bamm! It was absolute love.
I jumped into it and these days I'm smelling nothing else. Also because my hubby liked it a lot too, and in fact he came home on Friday with a nicely scented packet to be opened together.
Result n.1: now we both smell of Tam Dao (:-)
Result n.2: the bottle will end at the speed of light (:-(

I like works executed "by subtraction", and I think Tam Dao is one of the least complex perfumes I smelt so far: indeed it wouldn’t need to be more articulated raw materials in the composition are of such a refined quality that you only need to put them under the just light to make them shine like mad.
So, no tricks, daring compositions, etc.. art here lies in simplicity, and in an extremely refined taste.
Do you have any idea of the amount of culture you need to put together half-dozen essential oils -only the right ones- selecting the finest quality, in the correct percentages?
The fragrance has a clean, green start with a pungent cypress associated with a delicate cedarwood, used in barely perceptible amounts, I suspect that the opening notes serve the only purpose of introducing a vital player on the scene of perfumery of every age and every latitude: sandalwood. Of excellent quality, in my opinion.
We begin to perceive it clearly after at least 5 minutes from the spray (it’s a base note with fixative properties so you can’t smell it at the beginning) and it goes on for an hour or so with a warm, milky, effect, reminiscent of warm butter cookies. Fascinating. Unfortunately, after an hour or so, being ad edt, you can’t smell it anymore. It must be mentioned that sandalwood is an endangered species and if we continue to use it in a few years it will die out completely. From what I perceive, in the composition there is really a homeopathic amount (it’s extremely expensive) but  I’m okay, for once.