Olivier Durbano Black Tourmaline

Notes: cardamom, coriander, cumin, frankincense, pepper, smoked wood, oud, leather, precious woods, musk, amber, moss, patchouli

When I was a kid, my mother signed my younger brother and I up for summer classes at the Maryland Institute, College of Art.  In those weeks of trekking up the tall marble staircase to our classrooms on the third floor, I came to appreciate the smells of oil paints and turpentine, and to this day, they evoke pleasant memories of both my childhood and the later days spent at MICA as an student in the visual communication program.

And so it goes with Black Tourmaline.  As with the first two scents in his line, Olivier Durbano means to evoke the cool qualities of a gemstone.  Also like Rock Crystal and Amethyst, Black Tourmaline is a very dry scent, crisp and incense-like.  But it opens with a sensation that reminds me very much of oil paint and turpentine, a notion that is quickly joined by the essence of leather. Not an old comfortable leather, warm and soft, but one that is more new, needing to be broken in.  It's partnered with a smokiness, a Church-y burning frankincense accented with exotic spices, most notably cumin, the bittersweet zing of cardamom, and a nice dose of black pepper. 

In the drydown, the scent is much the same but with a bit of added patchouli.  Despite the heavy seeming notes of spices and woods, Black Tourmaline is surprisingly light and airy and would be pleasant worn by man or woman at any time of the year.  I'm not a huge fan of leather scents, but with the turps effect and the Catholic incense of my childhood, I can say I enjoy this particular one very much.