No. 1 Tonic Blanc
Thomas Kosmala (2018)

The opening is a mixed bag - there's a a stunning neroli note that's been turned inside out so that it smells (initially) more like the bitter tonic water you add to a G&T and less like the bathroom soap neroli usually turns into on my skin, but it shares the room with a rough Iso E Super or plain lumberyard woody chemical that I just can't stand. Immediately past the topnotes, the bullish woody note flattens its ears just enough to let the golden neroli slide past and occupy center stage. The neroli is like that badly behaved little cousin of yours who manages to keep up a good show for all of five minutes before lapsing into his default mode of being a little shit, i.e., it suddenly drops all its white t-shirty, summery G&T freshness and turns into, well, you guessed it, a bar of bathroom soap. Sadly, this gives the screechy woody aromachemical permission to return, so the rest of the scent is really just cheap neroli guest bathroom soap duking it out with woody ethanols. If you like a natural-smelling neroli or orange blossom scent, you can get it in half litre bottles in any Southern European country (not just France). At over 150 euros, Thomas Kosmala is brazenly up-charging (call it niche snob tax if you like) for the addition of some Iso E Super sloshed into neroli supermarket cologne.

Tonic Blanc jumps off the skin with soapy freshness. The aroma of hard milled soap is the undeniable core quality of this scent. Anything touched by Tonic Blanc becomes the freshest clean cedar wood + expansive musk charged orange blossom + neroli scented pressed linen fresh aroma. This is what I want my freshly laundered sheets and and clean white T Shirts to smell like. Yes it is a clean soapy scent, but the outstanding quality of this fragrance is the incredible projection of the woods and musks that imparts ocean fresh breeze and uplifting presence. Kosmala is a master of driving aromas with combinations of hyper clean musks and synthetic woods that project the core scent with a tsunami of freshness. Thomas Kosmala adds a special touch to each fragrance he composes that adds a contemporary unique fullness to traditional materials whether they are oud, leather, musks and with this orange blossom and neroli centered Tonic Blanc No. 1 he has one of his better results.