The Character Archive
Patchouli
The Second Skin
Ink-dark earth that the body learns to wear like a cloak.
✶
Patchouli is the most divisive of the great base notes — earthy, camphorous, faintly chocolatey, with a damp basement undertone that some read as dirt and others as sex. Aged, she becomes wine-dark and almost edible.
A tenacious base note, she gives a perfume gravity and a slow, animal warmth; nothing else on earth roots a composition quite like her.
- Role
- Earthy base note
- Smells like
- Damp earth, ink, dark cocoa, dry leaves
- Used in
- Hidden
- Pairs well with
- Rose, labdanum, vetiver, oakmoss, amber
