Smoke of God by Simone Andreoli
Smoke of God: the new divine perfume by Simone Andreoli.
"If the gods in their dark nights smoked to spoil their spirit, they would smoke incense".
The perfume artist Simone Andreoli tells the genesis of his new fragrance "Smoke of God", literally in Italian "Fumo di Dio". Together with Sentosa, Camouflage and Do not Ask me Permission, he is part of the Writings in the dark collection of his famous Olfactory Diary. Like all olfactory creations by Simone Andreoli, also Smoke of God tells of a journey, or rather, of the sacred dimension of an inner journey: a metaphysical journey to the deserts of Oman and Somalia and a spiritual return to oneself.
Simone Andreoli is a cosmopolitan, a traveler who since childhood has learned to open up to the world. How did a perfume like Smoke of God come from?
"I lost all contact with reality to enter the middle of nowhere and let me go to the desert law. An unwritten rule, a code that is not expressed but imposes a vision; look inside. There is nothing, nothing happens. They speak the sunsets reflected in my iris but wait for the darkness to reveal all meaning. Night is the poetry of the dark, guardian of shipwrecked thoughts and words with God. "
Confronting with a powerful and mysterious landscape like the desert one means losing the perception of one's own known, geographic and inner world. The only law possible in the desert is the desert itself. In the silence of this immensity of sand, wind and infinite horizons we lose the traces of time, the spatial limits. And while the sun sets slowly leaving the pace to the darkest night, motionless and revealing, you just have to look inside, restore contact with yourself.
Smoke of God interprets the essence of this darkness by opening itself to the dimension of the divine. Captures and blurs the suggestions of the sacred and desert night translating them into three-dimensional olfactory poetry. On the free background hints of incense of Omani and leather; in the heart are mixed cashmere, absinthe and amyris; on the final vibra of incense of Somalia, elemi and styrax.
The incense of Oman and the incense of Somalia are the characteristic notes of Smoke of God. The incense of Oman, also called Frankincense and decreed as the world's millet incense, derives from the resin of the Boswellia Sacra trees in the green and mountainous region of Dhofar, on the border between Oman and Yemen. It is a very intense, aromatic and resinous fragrance. According to the Middle Eastern tradition, as indeed in each of the four monotheistic religions, the incense of Oman removes evil spirits and puts us in communication with God. Particularly aromatic and balsamic, the incense of Somalia is instead lighter, fresher. Used in traditional medicine and purification rituals, this incense produced on the border between Somalia and Ethiopia has a spicy, warm and enveloping aroma.
The base note of Smoke of God has a strong, animalistic and sensual touch given by leather, a note that blends irresistibly with the sweet essence of wood and resin, of the Amyris plant, of Jamaican origin but widespread especially in the South Africa and Central America. Amyris evokes spiritual purification due to its ability to relax the mind, calm anxiety and defuse stress. A real invitation to mind-body harmony and reconciliation with one's own ego and with the world.
The absinthe - aromatic, woody and vegetable - gives Smoke of God a breath of green-chlorophyll freshness while the cashmeran element releases its musky softness. The Styrax component, distilled from the resin of the Indian tree of Storace, mottled the scent of amber, strengthening its intensity and persistence and enveloping us in a warm, round, vanilla-like embrace. Elemi is distilled from a tropical tree native to the Philippines. Remember the essence of fennel but slightly peppery. In Arabic, elemi means "above and below" and it is not by chance that its essential oil is used to rebalance the upper and lower chakra points according to the precepts of the ancient Indian tradition. This essence, too, with a mystical and fortifying aura, lends itself, therefore, to our interior life to accompany us towards an ideal balance point between ourselves, our actions, our responsibilities.
Smoke of God is then something more and different from a perfume. It is an intimate experience, a spiritual scent that inebriates one's sensibility and not just the senses. It is a nocturnal journey in the desert that illuminates and warms our soul in the depths.