The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Toskovat', the Romanian niche house whose name derives from the Russian тоска, that ache of longing without a clear object, was founded in 2022 by self-taught perfumer David-Lev Jipa Slivinschi. At seven years old, he lost his grandmother, and the smell of incense and summer flowers drying slowly in her apartment became the template for everything he would later create. Take Me to Church is built from this memory, from the sensory architecture of loss and longing that shaped his understanding of fragrance. The resinous, smoky character reflects not religious devotion but the physical presence of remembrance, of spaces filled with the ghost of someone who is gone.
The note structure of Take Me to Church is designed not for beauty but for memory. Elemi resin and black pepper function as sensory anchors, the first things the wearer notices, the things that bring the past into the present. Frankincense and candle wax build the middle layer, the emotional core of the fragrance, and this is where the religious reference lives: not in any single note but in the accumulated weight of smoke and resin and old wood. The base, with its mineral notes and tar, is the conclusion, the moment when memory becomes permanent, when the past stops being something to recover and becomes simply part of who you are.
The evolution
The journey of this fragrance mirrors the act of entering a cold church on a winter morning. Black pepper and elemi resin open like the sharp bite of cold air, immediate and almost uncomfortable in their clarity. As the aldehydes fade, frankincense and candle wax emerge, shifting the space from outdoor cold to indoor warmth, to the smell of a space that has held centuries of prayer. Myrrh and leather deepen the ecclesiastical atmosphere, while cypriol adds a note of earth, of old stone and older bodies. The drydown arrives as a kind of spiritual exhaustion: mineral notes and tar replace warmth, and what remains is the austere, almost clinical clarity of a space that asks for nothing but presence. Guaiac wood and sandalwood appear at the very end, a final gesture toward comfort that the fragrance itself resists.
Cultural impact
Toskovat' has become one of the most talked-about voices in niche perfumery since 2022, self-taught, unconstrained, and deliberately outside the mainstream. Take Me to Church arrives in 2024 as a limited edition created for Urbanstoryteller, adding both rarity and a specific narrative to its appeal. Community discussions place it alongside incense-heavy references like Comme des Garçons Avignon and CDG Black, but its dusty, resinous character, with birch tar and candlewax threading through the smoke, sets it apart. It's the kind of fragrance that attracts people who've already tried the expected names and want something that actually contains a story.
