Pyroclasm

I’m always curious when BeauFort releases something new, so I was pretty excited to try Pyroclasm. The official description talks about basalt rock formations, shipyards, iron, and intense heat binding everything together. From the first spray, you’re hit with a sharp, acidic, almost chemical blast. Usually when people say something smells “chemical,” they mean the perfume failed to mimic something natural. Here it actually feels intentional. It’s harsh, peppery, sour, and very industrial. After a few minutes, resins and a strong mineral-metallic accord start pushing through. Together with the acidic opening, they create a cold, metallic atmosphere. It reminds me of the tangy smell of aged metal — like old copper coins, brass doorknobs, or bronze statues. There’s also a faint smokiness in the background, though it’s very different from the thick, tarry smoke found in earlier BeauFort scents. Here the smoke feels dry, pale, and bleak. As it settles, the acidity disappears and what’s left is mostly mineral notes and soft smoke, with touches of resins and ambergris adding a subtle warm, slightly salty undertone. At this stage it almost smells like steel tools, a metallurgy workshop, or a sterile operating room — clean, metallic, and quietly smoky. The brand sums up the character as elemental, intense, and mineral — and honestly, that description is pretty accurate. Overall, Pyroclasm feels like a nice compromise between artistic niche and wearability. Some BeauFort fragrances can be quite challenging in public, but this one strikes a more accessible balance — still unusual, but easier to wear than some of their earlier creations. Pretty unisex, I would say, and with good performance. Like most things from this brand, this is not blind-buy safe. Don’t expect compliments; chances are people won’t even register this as perfume. It’s cold, uninviting, and deeply atmospheric — exactly the kind of strange beauty BeauFort does so well.

Far North at the shoreline, tundra is at your back. Relentless sea is before you. Strong wind under the wispy sky offers a mixed air. On one one hand, it is clean, natural, and invigorating from the tundra’s land filtering. But on the other hand, it is moist and aquatic from the sea. You feel gratitude for experiencing nature so far away from civilization. But there is something even stronger competing for your nostrils' attention. You can see the source a dozen miles up shore: A medium-scale refinery of sorts. Its metals, plastics, and industrial fluids penetrate the atmosphere in an alien and toxic way. Is there an industrial-strength lemon cleanser there too being used to disinfect a steel platform? You feel a bit sad at such interference, but accept it. You still find peace in the stimulating and magical moment. What a time it is to be alive in the universe.

Day 1: The fragrance notes mean absolutely nothing. This smells like something burning that shouldn't be burning. The impression I get is of a whale carcass heaped on top of a tire fire about a half mile down the shore on the coldest, most miserable day of the year. I feel a little scared when I smell it. All of these work in this scent's favor. This fragrance was made for an undead guy who mostly hangs out in a speakeasy, who I feel are an underrepresented minority in the fragrance community. 10/10, I was impressed by the affront this brought to my nostrils.

Perfume muy interesante, la primera vez que probé está fragancia, me voló la cabeza por ser ahumada y de cierta forma acuática a la vez, en cierta etapa del perfume se siente una nota que evoca a un óxido muy particular que me encanta. En cuanto a performance, las primeras veces que lo utilice sentía que a las 4 hrs desaparecía, pero con el tiempo de uso se volvió una bestia en cuanto a duración y proyección. Ojo, es un perfume complejo, que no te dará cumplidos, al contrario habrá personas que te digan que hueles muy particular.

Metal. Metal girders. A boatyard where destroyers or submarines are being built. Or a skyscraper where metal pilings are being sunk deep in the earth. So unrelentingly metal, I love it!

Beaufort has a strong conceptual approach to perfumery, often pushing the boundaries of what a fragrance can be... most of their fragrances are somehow hyperbolic in how they use leather, smoke and metal accords. Positioning wise, they come close to Orto Parisi, with a similar ethos and price-point: (more) abstract, evocative, and (more) artistic. I would agree that some of their repertoire is tough to wear in public, but Pyroclasm strikes a more accessible balance, though still far from mainstream. The scent plays with the illusion of aftermath of something once ablaze, now smoldering and cooled. It doesn’t scream fire, it rather whispers of charred remnants, of scorched earth (or metal) that’s been doused. The listed notes are less a roadmap and more a palette, used to paint a vivid impression of extinguished heat. Pyroclasm is smoky for the first 15-30 minutes and then turns into a mineralic, almost metallic edge that grounds the composition, giving it a sense of realism. Once the smokiness is no longer dominant, Pyroclasm's core develops into a mixture of balsamic, incensy tones surrounded by vetiver and juniper. The "burnt vibe" remains, likely sustained by the cistus presence, but only as an undertone. Performance wise, you will get 2-3 hours of a decent scent bubble 30-50cm around you. After that, Pyroclasm will turn into a skin scent and will stay around for 7+ hours. In short, I think that Pyroclasm is a good compromise between artistic niche, contextual richness and wearability. It won't be for everyone, but in my opinion I would prefer it to something like Tonnerre (unless you like smelling like a barbeque). I would be tempted to say that it veers masculine, but given the abstraction - it really is unisex.

Moving away from the shoreline and into the shipyard, Pyroclasm shifts its focus from sea air to steel. Inspired by the immense natural forces that created the basalt formations of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, BeauFort London imagines a crossing to the shipyards of the Clyde, where similar heat and pressure were used to construct iron vessels. Pyroclasm, meaning “broken by fire,” explores the shared language between geology and industry, where extreme force binds, shapes, and holds materials together. From there, it’s time to cast off and experience Pyroclasm on skin. On first spray, Pyroclasm is surprisingly restrained, especially on paper. The opening centers on grapefruit, black pepper and saffron. The grapefruit brings a bright citrus lift, the black pepper adds a gentle spice, and the saffron contributes a soft, slightly luminous sweetness. At this stage, the fragrance feels almost familiar, even recalling citrusy, spicy aquatics from the late nineties or early two thousands. Nothing in the opening hints at the direction it will eventually take. After around twenty minutes, elemi and frankincense come forward, extending the fresh, spicy character while adding a light resinous edge. Shortly after, the mineral notes assert themselves and start to define the scent. They bring a clean, cold metallic quality that feels stark and matter of fact, smelling less like an impression of metal and more like the real thing. Around the one hour mark, cade gradually emerges and adds a dry, rustic smokiness. Sandalwood, ambergris and cedar follow, giving the fragrance a salty, woody base that feels familiar in modern perfumery. Through it all, the mineral notes and cade remain at the forefront, anchoring the fragrance in an unmistakably industrial space. The dry down, which settles in after roughly three hours, is where Pyroclasm comes fully into focus. What remains is a blend of mineral notes and cade, supported by touches of frankincense, styrax and ambergris that provide a warm, saline undertone. By this point, the citrus has completely faded, leaving a scent that recalls steel, sterilized tools or an operating room, clean, metallic and faintly smoky. It brings to mind the dry down of Inexcusable Evil by Toskovat, and it is here that Pyroclasm feels most faithful to its name, vividly evoking welding, steelwork and industrial heat. This is a tough fragrance to wear but I don’t think it’s a bad smell at all. If you enjoy mineral notes and unconventional, transportive scents, you’ll likely get a lot out of it. The way it evolves from the initial spray to the dry down is one of the most dramatic shifts I’ve noticed in a perfume. It starts off citrusy and spicy, almost like Creed Himalaya, and then slowly dries down into something stark and metallic, kind of like Inexcusable Evil by Toskovat, with just a hint of smoke. What a transition! Pyroclasm is well made and distinctive, a strong example of BeauFort London’s creativity. It may not be part of my regular rotation, but it is memorable, intriguing, and a good showcase of what makes the brand unique.

Very interesting perfume, though I’m not sure I’d wear. I’m a veterinary surgeon, and to me this fragrance smells strikingly similar to an operating field - it’s the scent of warm blood, fever and sterile surgical instruments.

🏭 Night Shift of a Welder ⚙️ Night shift in the shipyard. Sparks burst from the electrode and the metal glows under the mask, but this is not the smell of fire. It is the scent of what remains after the fire is gone. The opening hits like industrial citrus cleaner: sharp, chemical, like a steel platform freshly washed before work begins. A peppery, biting note pushes into the nose, raw and abrasive, like air hanging above heated metal. Then the metal cools. The sparks fade. The scent slides downward into darker tones: cold steel, wet and mineral, as if someone had just rinsed it with a hose. Resin seeps from sealed pipes somewhere in the back of the hall. Underfoot there is damp earth, old wooden boards in the workers shed, and above it all floats a distant veil of city smoke. The heavy, cold, metallic breath of the shipyard lingers in the air. In a moment the siren will sound and I will return to the weld. @the.scent.files

Perhaps my nose is too sensitive to metallic notes. I said in my comment about Tonnerre how I thought this could be a more palatable version of BeauFort's overly metallic scent profile, but I realized I was wrong. Tonnerre is quite smokey, whereas Pyroclasm isn't at all, making the metallic notes in this much sharper, and this difference is what made me realize Pyroclasm isn't actually more approachable than Tonnerre, its smokiness balances out the metallic notes' sharpness. While I do get a smidge of woods and citruses here, for the most part this is a linear metallic and peppery scent. The pepper and cedarwood stand out more on the dry down, giving this a pencil shavings-like scent similar to that you can get in certain sandalwood fragrances, just more metallic and less powdery. Not my favorite scent profile by any means and I also don't think I could ever wear this, but I think it's worth sampling either ways.

If you like Tyrannosaurus Rex by Zoologist, this new release and part of a trilogy from Beaufort London, might be me right up your alley. It also shares some similarities with Tonnerre, once you pass initial blast of citruses and smoke. Rex is more green while Tonnerre is more smoky-lemony? but both share this metallic, old copper coins/sewing machine mechanism/old wall clock gut's. If this is your thing and you are looking for something extra ordinary, a scent from a futuristic past , give it a try. But i think Meluzyna by Le Frag is the closest you can get

All of the "Force Majeure" collection are icy, but this one is the coldest. Freezing shards of metal with a "stiff" and uncompromising incense accord and the distant tang of the lemon from the elemi resins. This feels like what Ganymede could have been if the metallic theme were taken to the nth degree (Ganymede just smells to me like an overdose of safreleine and burnt, synthetic metal compounds) Another cold one from Euan McCall.

Oh so ashy! I was expecting something more obviously complex but this initially smells like post apocalyptic barren ash fields with a few flickering phosphorus fires. The complexity comes later (which I prefer to scents with pleasant but fleeting top notes). An underlying hint of fruits and flowers emerges with time. This is the best ash scent I’ve experienced and a welcome addition to the Beaufort canon.

the wise man's inexcusable evil ! in the best way