For someone who grew up in green and soft places, I have an unfeasible love for deserts. Io by Chris Rusak both feeds and eases that longing.

Despite the sideways rain and pewter skies outside in Edinburgh this evening, I’m sitting in a glorious perfumed evocation of hot light, deep shadows, and fire. This is dry, deep red earth with brittle pine needles embedded in it. It opens raw and herbal, almost sticky with cypress sap, then opens out and breathes as it gets hotter, dryer, with salt crystallising on your skin and frankincense that rises from earth to air permeating everything. Glorious.

I rather wish someone would bottle the smell of the various deserts I’ve spent time in, and ones I’d like to dream about

Also, please admire the dinky 15ml bottle, and celebrate perfumers who make small volumes available to those of us who find it hard to justify adding another 100ml

originally posted 12 March 2019