Patchouli
Patchouli opens with violet leaf — a raw, green, slightly bitter note that signals from the first second that this won't be the sweet incense-heavy patchouli of the 1970s.
The scent fingerprint
Weighted by intensity across 9 accords.
Every perfume in Sillage is represented as a distribution across canonical accord slugs — a lingua franca for scent. Two fragrances with overlapping fingerprints are scent-twins, even if they share no literal note.
- Warm Spicy50
- Balsamic50
- Woody50
- Vanilla
The note pyramid
- Violet Leaf
- Patchouli
- Leather
- Labdanum
- Benzoin
- Amber
By the editors · 2 min readPatchouli opens with violet leaf — a raw, green, slightly bitter note that signals from the first second that this won't be the sweet incense-heavy patchouli of the 1970s. The heart is patchouli undisguised: dark, earthy, and direct. It has the characteristic camphor-and-soil duality that defines the raw material, and M. Micallef does not attempt to sanitize or accessorize it.
The base unfolds into leather, labdanum, benzoin, and amber — a deep resinous accord that wraps the patchouli in something warmer and more animalic. Vanilla and musk soften the edges but do not sweeten the composition. Patchouli is a fragrance for those who want exactly what the name promises: earthy, resinous, leather-tinged, uncompromising. Cold weather extends its character best.
Scent twins
Factual metadata (name, house, year, notes) is seeded from public datasets. The editorial reading and scent fingerprint are written by Claude against our house style — none of it is scraped prose. Read our methodology.