The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Oswald Pare built Voile D'encens around a single tension: what happens when bright, fruity notes refuse to disappear once the smoke arrives? The brand's own copy describes it as colors dancing, then a veil of smoke creeping in, but the colors don't vanish. They carve out space. That persistence of lightness against darkness became the fragrance's engine. Pare reached for rhubarb and pear at the opening, unusual choices for an incense composition, because he wanted tartness that could stand in the smoke without being consumed by it. The 2019 release translates that poetic image into something you can actually wear: a veil that reveals as much as it conceals.
What makes Voile D'encens structurally unusual is how frankincense and elemi, the primary resinous architecture, never fully take command. In most incense fragrances, smoke dominates the drydown. Here, tonka bean and oak wood intercept the resinous wave and redirect it into something warmer, almost edible. The rhubarb note, often deployed as a fleeting topAccord in fruity compositions, earns its keep by remaining detectable well past the opening. The result is a fragrance that shifts register rather than simply fading: tart to warm, bright to smoky, assertive to intimate. It's one of the more honest structural arcs in the indie incense space, nothing pretends to be something it's not.
The evolution
The opening announces itself with rhubarb's green tartness and pear's musky sweetness, more fruit market than incense chamber. Cedar and elemi arrive within minutes, sharpening the composition. The mid-development is where the veil descends: frankincense smoke begins to curl through the brighter notes, not overwhelming them but interweaving. By hour two, the fruity notes have receded but not vanished, they've become a memory held beneath the smoke. The drydown is where this fragrance earns its name: resinous, warm, intimate, clinging close to skin for eight to ten hours. Cedar and vetiver persist longest, leaving a faint woody trace that smells like a room someone burned incense in hours ago.
Cultural impact
The resurgence of incense-inspired fragrances in the late 2010s represents a broader cultural movement toward sensory authenticity and meditative self-expression. Voile D'encens arrives during this period, when independent perfumers began challenging the dominance of mainstream sweet and fresh compositions. The fragrance participates in a tradition stretching back centuries, frankincense and myrrh shaped ancient trade routes and religious ceremonies. By 2019, this heritage had been reimagined for contemporary wearers seeking depth without heaviness. Independent houses like Motif Olfactif democratized access to complex resinous compositions that once required specialized knowledge or travel to niche markets.
