The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
White Smoke arrived in 2011 as part of the Natural Perfumers Guild's Prima Aroma Collection, specifically created for the Guild's 13th Sign Project. Five professional perfumers took part, each working with natural materials alone. The brief: interpret the forgotten 13th zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, through scent alone. No synthetics. No shortcuts. Anya McCoy chose smoke and resins as her primary materials, building a fragrance that doesn't merely reference incense. It becomes it. The combination of warm, enveloping smoke and deep, persistent resin creates an olfactory experience that feels both ancient and immediate, as if the boundary between the present moment and something older has dissolved entirely.
Five natural resins define this composition: benzoin, French labdanum, olibanum (frankincense), opoponax, and myrrh. Together they create an amber-balsamic accord that's more complex than most incense fragrances because each material contributes a distinct character rather than blurring into a single smoky note. Benzoin brings warmth and vanilla-adjacent sweetness that fills the space around you. Labdanum adds a dry, slightly leathery depth that gives the composition real staying power.
The evolution
The opening arrives fast and declarative, a wave of warm resin that announces itself without apology. The warmth of benzoin softens the sharper edges of frankincense immediately, so it reads as smoke rather than antiseptic. The composition settles into its middle phase as opoponax emerges with its honeyed warmth, tempering what could have been harsh. Labdanum and benzoin create a soft amber sweetness underneath, the warmth of someone lost in thought, smoke curling through a quiet room. The drydown takes over as myrrh becomes dominant here, with its dry, resinous, slightly bitter character that grounds the entire composition. The benzoin remains as a warm, sweet undertone, but the sweetness has moved from the foreground to a supporting role. This is where the fragrance lives most comfortably, intimate, close to the skin, present without projecting.
Cultural impact
White Smoke occupies a specific corner of the natural fragrance world: resins-forward, smoke-centric, and unapologetically devotional. It shares territory with Serge Lutens' Ambre Sultan and Comme des Garcons Series 3 Incense, fragrances that use incense not as a stylistic gesture but as a genuine aromatic material. The Natural Perfumers Guild's 13th Sign Project brief gave McCoy the opportunity to work with a focused creative mandate, resulting in a fragrance that prioritizes character over accessibility. For wearers who seek natural perfumery at its most honest, this is a reference point.
