The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
28 is Daniel Josier's 2025 composition, and the name reads like a diary entry, not a marketing choice. This one opens with a combination that shouldn't work on paper: banana, plum, and walnut, sweet and dense, almost dessert-like. The banana arrives ripe, almost candied, while the plum brings a darker, jammy undertone that keeps things from tipping into pure confection. Walnut threads through both, lending a dry, woody edge that grounds the sweetness before it gets cloying. Then cognac cuts through the center, warm and boozy, with an alcoholic heat that feels less like a splash of brandy and more like the bottom of a snifter that's been sitting on a table for an hour.
The banana note is the whole gamble, and the thing that separates 28 from a dozen other tobacco-vanilla releases. Banana in perfumery tends to collapse into either artificial candy or something muted beyond recognition. Here it reads as banana liqueur, ripe and sweet, sitting on top of cognac like a garnish on a digestif. The walnut underneath adds a dry nuttiness, almost like the inside of a freshly cracked shell, and that dryness pulls the sweetness sideways before it can become a one-note confection.
The evolution
The first thirty minutes are where 28 announces itself. Banana and plum hit immediately, sweet and almost confectionary, with the walnut lurking underneath like a dry edge you can feel before you name it. The cognac doesn't show up right away, but you can sense something boozy warming the sweetness from below, as if someone poured a measure into the fruit. By the one-hour mark, the tobacco and cinnamon have settled into the foreground. The banana softens but doesn't disappear, more like a memory of banana bread than the fresh fruit. This is the warmest the fragrance gets, dense and enveloping, with the tonka and labdanum starting to build the base. The sillage here is moderate, a few feet at most, close enough to feel personal. From the three-hour mark onward, the drydown takes over. Vanilla, sandalwood, and vetiver smooth everything out, and what remains is a warm, creamy, slightly smoky sweetness that sits on skin like a second layer. The next morning, you'll catch traces of it on your collar or your wrist, a quiet ghost of the night before.
Cultural impact
28 shares territory with the brand's tobacco-forward Ambre Tabac, both of which sit in that rich, warm-spiced register that tobacco fragrances tend to occupy. The difference is the gourmand lean of 28, the way its banana-cognac opening pulls the composition toward something sweeter and more food-adjacent. Wearers who gravitate toward dense, food-leaning fragrances, the kind that sit close to the skin and feel like an extension of the person rather than a statement, will find a lot to appreciate here.
