Opium (1977)
The immediate sensation is thick and resinous, a dark sweetness cut by spice—cinnamon heat against plum and carnation-like florals.
The scent fingerprint
Weighted by intensity across 18 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.
- Smoky90
- Woody85
- Amber85
- Balsamic
The note pyramid
- Jasmine
- Plum
- Bergamot
- Sandalwood
- Cinnamon
- Peach
- Lily of the Valley
By the editors · 2 min readThe immediate sensation is thick and resinous, a dark sweetness cut by spice—cinnamon heat against plum and carnation-like florals. There's an incense fog that settles over everything, liturgical rather than ethereal, grounding the composition in church stone and rare wood. Jasmine blooms briefly before retreating into shadow, more atmospheric than soliflore.
As it develops, sandalwood and amber take over, creating a honeyed, balsamic warmth that feels both opulent and narcotic. Patchouli adds an earthy depth without turning head-shop; the vanilla and benzoin soften the edges just enough to keep it wearable. The base is famously tenacious, lingering for hours with a skin-scent blend of musk, labdanum, and faint castoreum animalic.
This is perfume as statement, deliberate and unapologetic. It demands confidence and cool weather, best suited to evening or anyone comfortable taking up space in a room.
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.
