I usually say that Baptême du Feu smells like Venice. That’s because it’s become entwined with the remembered scents of deep rain, wet stone, old plaster, and art immersion from wearing it for a week-long visit. When I sniff it and close my eyes, I can see the translucent glow of Sigmar Polke’s resin-soaked canvases in the vast hall of the Palazzo Grassi.

But while that glow might conjure up some of the burned orange peel and gingered spices, or a handful of potpourri thrown into the fire, it misses the illusion of fireworks on a misty night, where the illuminated tendrils of smoke and cordite sit under low clouds, drifting and pooling in the cooldamp air. And that is a smell that belongs here in Edinburgh, from Cai Guo-Qiang’s Black Rainbow to the almost endless fireworks of August and Hogmanay.

I enjoy this exciting fizz and crackle of a sparkler on Bonfire Night, right down to the singed wool of my gloves, but I’m left holding a fan of dusty burned metal wires. For me, rich memories flesh out the gaps between the bare bones, but it’s not a great perfume. It’s been a long time since there was an exceptional perfume from Serge Lutens, but Baptême du Feu is an awful lot better than, say, the standing outside a laundrette eating lemon sherbets feel of La Religieuse, or the thin drone of his other much-maligned recent releases or reformulations. So I keep wearing it happily. I might even have a back-up bottle…

Do you have any scents improved beyond themselves by association?

originally posted 8 May 2019. Additional photos of details from Polke’s paintings taken in October 2018