The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Force arrived in 2023 from TOBBA, a fragrance house whose founder Jasper Li approaches composition with a sense of deliberate balance. The official description pairs it with words like futuristic and meditative, a paradox on paper that makes more sense once you smell how cool spearmint and sweet licorice collide with smoky myrrh and deep leather in the same space. The name itself does heavy lifting. Force, in this reading, isn't aggression. It's equilibrium. The tension between opposites that holds a composition together. The brand's secondary title, "Equilibrium," makes that explicit.
What makes Force distinctive isn't the ingredient list. Cypress, fir, incense, patchouli, suede, orris root. None of those are rare in niche perfumery. What sets this apart is the exact pairing and the restraint behind it. Italian cypress and Siberian fir balsam are conifers, sure, but they're conifers with completely different textures. Cypress is sharp, almost architectural. Fir balsam is deep and resinous, closer to sap than needle.
The evolution
The first twenty minutes belong to cypress. Not sparkling. Not fresh in the citrus sense. More like crushed needles between your fingers, herbal and slightly cold, with a green astringency that tightens the air around you. If you know cypress from Mediterranean gardens or men's barbershop scents, forget that. This version is darker, closer to bark and resin, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. Around the thirty-minute mark, something shifts. The cypress steps back and Siberian fir balsam takes its place. Warmer, denser, with a sweetness underneath that recalls tree sap rather than candy. This is where the licorice and cocoa absolute that wearers describe start to surface. Not gourmand sweetness. Something older, more phenolic, like black licorice root or the skin of roasted nuts.
Cultural impact
Force wears like a choice, not a statement. It attracts people who already think in terms of texture and contrast rather than sweetness and hype, and tends to land with wearers who reach for incense, dark woods, and unsweetened chocolate. In community conversations it draws comparisons to Thundra by Profumum Roma, Halfeti Leather by Penhaligon's, and Oud Seven by Matière Première, placing it in conversation with contemplative, resinous compositions rather than mainstream designer woods.
The House
TOBBATOBBA is a niche fragrance house rooted in Hong Kong, founded in 2021 by painter Jasper Li and co-founder Adrian Yu. The house operates at the intersection of visual art and olfactory craft, applying Li's background in painting directly to fragrance composition. TOBBA has built a collection of distinctive scents since its inception, spanning themes from urban intensity to coastal serenity, each named in English, French, and other languages to reflect its cross-cultural positioning. The brand gained European recognition through its debut at Esxence and has since expanded distribution to include UK retailer Boots Fragrance. With eight releases from 2023 to 2025, TOBBA maintains a deliberate release cadence that allows each fragrance to establish its own identity within the broader collection.
The Creator
Jasper LiLi's style resists easy categorization, but certain characteristics appear across his work. His compositions tend toward restraint rather than projection, favoring depth and evolution over immediate impact.
