The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Batuk takes its name from the traditional art of indigenous Filipino tattoos known as Batok, a practice that has endured across generations in the islands. Renato Lopena Jr. composed this 2024 release as an interpretation of that cultural practice through scent. The fragrance explores the interplay between organic material and deliberate mark, between what grows wild and what is intentionally etched into the body. It reflects the house's interest in telling stories rooted in Filipino identity through composition rather than visual reference. The result is less an exercise in nostalgia and more an act of cultural remembrance worn close to the skin, a quiet document of memory that refuses to reduce its source material to spectacle.
The note structure is where the tension lives. Blood orange and honey pomelo provide a bright, almost tropical opening, but they are immediately undercut by bamboo and metallic notes that introduce an unexpected coldness to the composition. The rose at the heart sits restrained, never overt, anchoring the composition in something familiar before the wool and oakmoss settle. That wool accord reads as a dry, structural warmth rather than a fuzzy textile sweetness, something closer to raw fibers than to cashmere, carrying weight without softness.
The evolution
The opening minutes are sharp and bright, almost aggressive with citrus. Blood orange hits first, followed by honey pomelo's rounder sweetness, but both are doing structural work rather than announcing themselves. As the top notes recede, the bamboo arrives with its green, hollow character, and the metallic note adds something cold and faceted, like the scent of a railing after rain. The heart is where the composition shifts register: a restrained rose emerges, less a flower than a trace of one, blending into the mineral dryness. The wool begins to surface as the scent deepens, and the composition becomes tactile, like pulling on a sweater that still holds body heat. The oakmoss and patchouli ground the final hours with something earthy and persistent. On skin, the composition reads cleanly before settling into an intimate close-to-skin drydown.
Cultural impact
Batuk draws on indigenous cultural reference, and the wool accord is a material rarely attempted in this kind of composition, paired here with citrus and cold metallic notes in a combination that gives the fragrance its unusual architecture. The scent reads in tactile terms, evoking environment more than decoration, suggesting woven fibers and cool metal rather than fruit or florals. That material vocabulary sets it apart from compositions built around sweetness or warmth alone, offering instead a sense of place and texture.
