Cologne Pour Le Soir Maison Francis Kurkdjian 2009

If a traditional eau de cologne might annoint the skin in morning ritual, bracing not just in scent but in bracing the self to greet the day; if it might serve symbolically to gird the skin around what lies within, to reinforce a boundary between self and day and world, and make their impossible *mentality* possible, then this Cologne Pour le Soir is for me a most worthy counterpart for an evening ritual of return and repose.

It fizzes on, disarming and unbinding. Then imagine that this rush of joy gives way to bliss: incense hovers slightly above my skin whilst honey melds with it, the Cologne becoming almost immediately something replete with invitation and intimacy. There's a moment in the late dry down of vintage Chanel 22 where the silvery beauty relents and heaven touches earth. Cologne Pour le Soir lives in that moment. Whatever carnality might ensue is imbued with holiness.

This is a sacrament for the skin.