First Hug

First Hug threads seaweed and galbanum into frankincense and oak, then warms the whole thing with cognac and ambergris. The result reads as sea and shore at once, tidal and terrestrial, a composition that holds two opposite registers in a single breath. The green opening is sharp and bracing, galbanum's bitter cut threading through the salt-brine quality of seaweed, almost like walking past a row of overgrown hedges near the coast.

The evolution

First Hug opens with a bracing green chill. Cognac and chamomile arrive together, but the chamomile reads blue, the herbal-sweet kind with a faintly bitter edge that keeps the opening from going soft. Seaweed sits underneath like a low tide, not loud, just present, the kind of salt-brine murmur you'd catch walking past a tidal pool. The cognac warms the whole opening, rounding out the green and turning what could have been a crisp, fleeting cologne into something with a pulse. As the top notes begin to settle, neroli lifts briefly, bright and slightly soapy, then violet leaf pulls the composition greener still, sharper, more vegetable, almost like crushed stems underfoot. Frankincense arrives quietly in the heart, a resinous hum rather than a churchy blast, the kind of dry, sappy warmth you might associate with old wood or a smoldering stick of incense.