The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Play Again Now arrived as part of Lola James Harper's eau de toilette lineup, a collection of fragrances named not after places or flowers but after phrases. The label is the work of Rami Mekdachi, a creator associated with the Air project, whose perfumes reach into photography, music and cinema as part of a wider creative practice. Play Again Now sits inside that world. The name reads as an invitation to repeat something worth repeating. Benoist Lapouza composed it, building a resinous-spicy architecture around opoponax and myrrh, layering benzoin, labdanum, cardamom, cinnamon, iris, myrtle, vanilla and vetiver into a composition that holds weight on skin. Made in France, the fragrance carries a deliberate density, the kind of structure that asks to be studied rather than worn carelessly.
The composition stacks four resins, opoponax, benzoin, labdanum and myrrh, into a single weighted chord. Each one carries its own temperature and texture. Opoponax brings a sweet-bitter gum resin quality, warm and slightly honeyed with a faint bitter edge. Myrrh pulls in the opposite direction, drier, almost medicinal, with that cool stone-and-incense quality that keeps the sweetness in check. Benzoin steps in with its vanilla-adjacent warmth, sticky and comforting, while labdanum adds a darker, smokier amber underneath, giving the whole stack a shadowed depth.
The evolution
First ten minutes, the cardamom and cinnamon hit sharp and almost dry, like spice scattered over hot stone before anything sweet arrives. The top notes feel arid, almost brittle, a quick flash of heat before the heavier materials underneath begin to surface. By the 30-minute mark, the resins take over. Opoponax and myrrh thicken the air, benzoin adds a sticky sweetness, and the whole thing turns into something resembling cold incense smoke in a heated room, dense, resinous, with that particular stillness that real myrrh brings to a composition. The iris emerges around hour two, dusty and cool against the warmth, which keeps the composition from tipping into pure sweetness. Iris at this stage reads more as a texture than a flower, a powdery, slightly mineral note that adds lift without brightness. From hour three onward, vanilla and vetiver take the wheel.
Cultural impact
Play Again Now occupies a deliberate corner of contemporary perfumery, a fragrance that wears its density without apology. The composition's resinous-spicy architecture gives it a specific gravity on skin, the kind of scent that stays close and substantive rather than projecting across a room. Within the amber-spicy family, it brings an unusual emphasis on layered resins rather than a single dominant accord. Opoponax, myrrh, benzoin and labdanum share the foreground, each one legible and contributing to the overall structure rather than melting into an anonymous amber base.
