Wood and Absinth
The opening of clary sage arrives as a sharp herbaceous strike—green, almost medicinal, with a faint metallic edge that suggests the wormwood of its name.
The scent fingerprint
Weighted by intensity across 4 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.
- Vetiver80
- Cedar70
- Rosemary60
- Jasmine40
By the editors · 2 min readThe opening of clary sage arrives as a sharp herbaceous strike—green, almost medicinal, with a faint metallic edge that suggests the wormwood of its name. This isn't the gentle lavender-adjacent sage of spa candles but something more unsettling, tinged with bitterness. Within minutes, jasmine threads through the green severity, not as ornamentation but as a counterweight, its indolic warmth barely softening the austere upper registers.
As it settles, vetiver and cedar form a dry, unyielding base—rooty and faintly smoky, with none of the sweetness that often accompanies woody fragrances. The jasmine persists as a spectral presence rather than a focal point, just enough floral flesh to prevent the composition from becoming entirely skeletal.
This is perfume for those who want their woods unvarnished and their greens unapologetic. It wears close and serious, more interested in clarity than comfort. Best suited to cooler weather and anyone weary of crowd-pleasing compositions.
