L'Oblìo
Meo Fusciuni (2017)

L’Oblio is a lovely, pleasing perfume, but it lives up to its name – oblivion, forgetfulness – by gliding over the curves and grooves of my brain and out my left ear like a half-remembered thought. And like my half-remembered thought, I am sure it was genius and that the world is all the poorer for not knowing it, but what can I do? It is gone now.

L’Oblio is one of those Meo Fusciuni perfumes that makes you understand how his entire oeuvre is divided into two textures – one ethereal and gossamer-light, the other as dense as wax. L’Oblio belongs to the former category. It is almost maddeningly vague, a whispering thing of spearmint breath, blue bottle Nivea, gum, green tea, Japanese stick incense, and the papery dustiness of old books (benzoin), all extremely pleasant and yet of no definite shape other than a faded memory of those cornstarch-dusted candy cigarettes they would give children in the 1980s. The sourness of old tea hangs around at the end, adding a musty, brackish note that fights back against the nothingness of the scent. Ultimately, though, it amounts to very little, like someone who has their hand raised last in a Teams meeting and realizes too late that everything interesting or important has already been said, so ends up muttering ‘I’d just like to add my support for what Allison said’.

L'Oblio is grandma's restorative tisane – it has that sharpish dried medicinal herbs briskness about it, but ultimately the intention is to soothe. The unusual yerba mate main theme (which here has slight accents of mint and thyme in its odour profile alongside the more general impression of dried leaves and twigs) is supported by subtle and dusky iris and a light woody backing. It's not particularly complex, has demure sillage and smells more like a naturopath's tonic lotion than a perfume, so is unlikely to garner many fans. I'm not wild about it either, but I do like it.