The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Chrome Hearts launched +33+ in 2019 as part of its tightly held two-fragrance lineup. The house, known for sterling silver hardware and gothic lettering, approached scent the way it approaches everything else: deliberately, and only when the idea felt ready. The result was a spicy-smoky composition built around bitter orange, frankincense, suede, and a base weighted with amber, coconut, labdanum, and opoponax. The brand's own copy frames it as "a scent layered with notes of spicy citrus, strong, but warm and hypnotic," tuned for what they call "the mysterious side." The fragrance bottles that aesthetic into a single object: bright citrus at the top, smoke at the middle, a sweet resinous warmth at the bottom that doesn't fade out so much as sink into skin.
What makes +33+ structurally interesting is the tension between its bright, bitter-orange opening and the resinous density underneath. Frankincense and suede form a smoky, almost ecclesiastical heart, while coconut and opoponax in the base introduce a sweet, slightly syrupy counterweight that keeps the incense from reading cold or church-like. Labdanum and amber lock it into warmth. The accord lands in territory that draws comparisons to Le Labo Santal 33, though Chrome Hearts' version leans further into the smoky-incense register and pulls less sandalwood.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are loud. Bitter orange cuts sharp, and the frankincense hasn't fully surfaced yet, so what you smell is mostly citrus heat and a flicker of something resinous trying to break through. By the thirty-minute mark, the smoke has won. The suede and incense take over, and the composition shifts from bright to smoldering. This is the phase that wears closest to the brand's stated intention, warm, dark, a little hypnotic. The coconut and opoponax arrive quietly in the background around the two-hour mark, adding a faint sweetness that rounds the edges of the smoke without softening it. By hour four, you're living in the base: amber, labdanum, and a dry, almost candied resin that sits close to skin. The sillage is moderate to strong through the first few hours before pulling inward, leaving a more intimate trail that registers as warmth rather than projection.
Cultural impact
+33+ draws frequent comparisons to Le Labo Santal 33, the reference point for anyone who wears smoky, resinous scents with a citrus edge. Wearers who discover Chrome Hearts through jewelry or leather goods tend to come to the fragrance expecting the brand's signature attitude, and +33+ delivers on that. The composition reads heavy on incense and smoke, with enough sweetness from the coconut and opoponax to keep it wearable rather than austere. It shares Santal 33's DNA, that bitter-orange-and-incense signature, but pushes further into resin and pulls back on sandalwood, which gives it a darker, more smoldering character.
