Acrasia
Eau de Parfum, Beaufort London (2022)

I went into this expecting a fragrance built around red wine, and the opening actually had me pretty excited. You don’t see that note used often, and here it’s handled well—just the right balance of fruit, booze, and sweetness. Red wine can easily slip into a strange, overly fruity territory, but Acrasia keeps it in check. As it develops, though, things shift. Rose starts to come forward, and a fairly standard patchouli-amber base starts peeking through. By the time it settles, the rose ends up dominating all the way to the end, turning it into more of a rose-focused scent than anything wine-driven. Not what I was hoping for.

I get why some people mention a resemblance to Tauer’s LDDM—there’s a bit of that sour vetiver and faint amber vibe in the drydown—but it’s really only a mild echo, maybe 15%. The rest of the fragrance doesn’t resemble LDDM at all, so definitely don’t buy this expecting an amber alternative. I still haven’t found anything that genuinely fills that space.

I liked the wine opening, but the drydown left me pretty underwhelmed. The sandalwood, vetiver, and vanilla barely contribute; it mostly goes from wine with a touch of citrus straight into a dry, slightly sour rose. Performance is moderate. Out of the Revenants collection, Rake & Ruin is still the standout for me.

In general, it does not pay to have expectations. I got over-excited when I heard that Beaufort were launching their first rose-centred perfume and started imagining all sorts of doomy and wayward delight in store. Not to be. The perfume is not quite the disaster that some have made it out to be but stellar it ain’t.
In keeping with the Beaufort mould there is plenty odd about it. It’s not everyday that one comes across a citrus-soured rose that suffers what first smells like an avalanche of attic dust, but which later reveals its true waxy nature – a kind of mutant offspring of an iris-patchouli coupling. This is equally disturbing and intriguing and not for the faint of heart – so, true to form for Beaufort. But it does have the unfortunate effect of stunting the rose and holding it captive. I applaud it for its attract-repel quality, but the balance of those two facets teeters on a knife edge.