Chrysolithe
Olivier Durbano (2015)

Plum Island, situated in the northeast portion of Massachusetts, is a place I often frequent for its natural beauty. There are these features, the salt pannes, sparsely vegetated, shallow depressions in the marsh surface where water can pool and evaporate, where I love to bird watch and generally observe. On summer days, the cool ocean spray meets the grassy, saline air here. Chrysolithe reminds me of these visits.

Durbano uses one of my favorite aromatic oils, hyssop, and its tea-like, sweet-herbaceous aroma, combined with black cumin, with its warm, almost perspiring facets. There is also a ginger and lemon verbena sensation, that folds in like phyllo, and it feels so layered and creamy, almost pulpy.

The dry, crisp and earthy white sage which forms the body of Chrysolithe is its most salient quality, as it renders it expansive, imparting a verticality, much like that of Plum Island's salt pannes. It winds down to a sweet smokiness from cedar and vetiver, slightly dirty and musky as it clings close to my skin. This is what I would consider an enlivening summer sizzler of a scent.