Edition 03 - INCENSE – woody and resinous and smoky

Photo: perfumeniche

I was having coffee with a friend a while ago, and we got on to celebrity gossip/news and just how much of it there is and how we don't really care for it. But we did care that Gwyneth Paltrow launched a goop fragrance from her wellness and lifestyle brand. We talked about what we thought it would smell like, what inspired it, and how we could get some.

We then moved on to talk about books, films, and new recipes we’d discovered before saying our goodbyes.

Later, at home, I found myself grazing the goop website. Goop (usually written as ‘goop’) was launched by Paltrow in September 2008 out of her kitchen, offering 'Cutting-edge wellness advice from doctors, vetted travel recommendations, and a curated shop of clean beauty, fashion, and home.'

I soon realized that a lot of what I saw on goop wasn’t for me, except for a Moroccan turkey meatball recipe and I found this: Edition 03 – Incense EDP.

It turns out Paltrow is a fan of fragrance. But how does someone reconcile a love for the ‘all-natural’ with a passion for perfume, which is, well, let’s face it, not exactly ‘healthy’?

Paltrow did it by teaming up with organic perfumer Douglas Little, founder of Heretic Parfums and nose behind my beloved Dirty Ginger, to create four all-natural, luxe perfumes for goop based on the seasons. Edition 03—Incense, launched in 2016, is the third fragrance in the series.

It opens with the heady scent of green frankincense from Oman. The green colour gives the resin fresh aspects of lime and menthol, making the opening airy and woody and deep. It’s the smell of mysticism and spirituality and the backdrop to what comes next. Juniper tiptoes forward, herbaceous and camphoraceous, it heightens the freshness of the green resin. Spicy, earthy black pepper is the perfect foil for the juniper. But this isn’t the only yin-yang pairing. There’s aromatic cardamom, sweet and spicy, with a woody, balsamic undertone that’s bolstered by cedar. It feels good to fill my lungs with it. Labdanum lurks here too, rich and complex.

But this story is all about incense, and there’s plenty of it wafting throughout the fragrance, making Edition 03 – Incense a smoky, resinous siren call. I cannot get enough of that green frankincense. Whenever I catch a whiff of it, I am impressed with the balancing act Douglas Little has pulled off. The notes don’t disappear into or fight each other; rather, they gently tug and tussle while keeping their own identity. Masterful.

Check out Edition 03 – Incense in our Shop.