OLFACTORY NOTES: Patchouli, Amber Woods, Black Pepper.
Perhaps it was the splendor of that square, or the smell of sand and earth trampled by the horses' hooves, or the magnetic euphoria of that mass of people chanting the name of a district, that reawakened in me the memory of an afternoon spent in Jaipur. I had met an essence dealer in the central square, on the side opposite the Hawa Mahal, the Palace of the Winds. It was the season when patchouli was harvested in the countryside around the city. The dealer had offered to accompany me to the harvest fields. It was the most beautiful time to do so, he told me proudly. At that moment the horses took off like lightning to circle the Piazza del Campo, spurred on by the jockeys who performed acrobatics to stay in the saddle. The trampled sand, the smell of leather, the roar of the crowd at the finish line, the memory of that afternoon in Jaipur, fused together in a prodigious amalgamation that awakened in me the determined ambition to distill a perfume. Thus, Legno Patchouli was born.
