Incendo

This is a wonderful smoky incense scent. I like A City On Fire, and while this reminds me of it, Incendo is a much more natural, chill take. A City On Fire has a very sharp, sulfuric smoke. Incendo is smoke from burning logs, herbs, and incense. They both do have a common thread somewhere, but I can't quite put my finger on what unites them, besides a vague smokiness. A City On Fire is a blustery night on the town full of excitement and maybe a little unplanned danger. Incendo is coming home from a forest camping trip, smelling your clothing, and being filled with the calm serenity of knowing yourself, your travel partners, and the earth a bit deeper than before. You also have the sneaking suspicion that the owls are not what they seem. It's a bit more mysterious and meditative like that. It's great to put on after dinner, to facilitate diving into the world a new book affords the imagination. I also found that before bed it was a great muse for helping me drift into a dream state. I am not sure how I will feel about it in the heavy summer heat, but having only received the sample a week ago, it has already brought me a lot of pleasure and comfort in this cold midwestern pandemic winter. It is hard to put a price on a fragrance that helps you mentally travel, while physical travel is off the table. I'll almost certainly be buying a full bottle when I am done with my sample. I would recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone who loves campfires, forests, and the natural smells that come with it. This is a unique fragrance that doesn't scream for attention or pressure you from a perfume counter. With that in mind, it also probably isn't for everyone, so definitely sample before buying.

My first try from La Curie seems to be the house's most celebrated, and winner of 2016 Art and Olfaction Award, likely it's most awarded. Incendo puts forth the "burnt pine tree" vibe excellently, a blend of pine, fir needles, embers, incense, and sage yielding a robust blend that rivals some of the better examples of this concept that I've smelled. It has some bite but not a ton, not as much as, say, Timothy Han On the Road. It partly embodies Imaginary Authors A City of Fire but perhaps with a little less spicy smoke, and partly embodies Profumum Arso but with a little less woods overall. To me, Incendo sits somewhere between these two. Certainly it inherently is geared toward cold weather wearing, so I'd be reluctant to don this in the summer. Also, it's slightly more masculine than unisex but certainly it's unisex enough that many women will gravitate toward it. These are just stereotypes, anyway, and anyone can wear whatever they want. At $95 for 50ml, this is wholly worthwhile, especially given that it performs robustly, very strong on projection and slow to diminish while also lasting a while. An instant love, a bottle I now want, Incendo ranks among the best of I've tried in this burnt pine realm. Superb stuff! 8 out of 10

I love La Curie's perfumes because of the slightly ozonic quality present in them in combination with dry, arid woods, leather, and herbs. They seem very indicative of the southwest and the place in which they're made, and for that reason I think they're quite special, even if I don't find tremendous diversity throughout the line. Incendo does well with their signature big sky image. It's the smell of a campfire at a distance, diluted through the cold night air—smoked sage and fir, not sweet and sticky and green but rather smoldering, dry, and crackling. It's a bit simple in the end without many material nuances, but it still plays with quite beautiful complexities of tone—light and dark, smoky and airy, warm and cold. It's streamlined, in a way, and though I may find some similarities with other fragrances in this same category (Slumberhouse's Norne, Profumum's Arso, or Hendley's Fume—all of which I love), it's the differences in Incendo that really sets it apart. It's a joy to wear, as I've been doing frequently through the fall and into the winter. It's also a joy that La Curie's prices aren't sky-high, and that there are travel-size bottles to buy with abandon and not feel as if you've made a gigantic investment. (8.5/10)

Fragrances with a lot of smoke are tricky. They can be ashy, acrid and rubbery or spoiled by weird herbal or musk inclusions. I've tried several, including orientals, and I tend to be partial to those amber, spice and incense combos. I first purchased a 15ml bottle of Incendo and then quickly followed up with a full bottle. Even though it did not fall into my comfort zone, not did it come across as incense smoke. To my nose, this is an accurate intrepretation of a forest wood fire with hastily gathered branches and twigs, some with a little clinging moss, wet leaves and maybe a small dead animal that was picked up in the mix. It begins with the clean smoke from the twigs and then later you pick up some of the wet leaves, green and animal, just a hint. As it dries, you do get a faint dose of sweet sap burning, but this is definitely not a Holiday, nutmeg and cocoa kind of fragrance. I think it is terrific. And I will wear it solo from time to time this winter, but i will most often layer it with some of my other winter frags that could use the bump of smoke and fire.

I've owned La Curie Incendo since late-Summer 2016 and I cannot believe that I have neglected to post of review of this award winning fragrance. In a nutshell, I find Incendo to be a stunner and worth of it's award winning status. It is simply the best real campfire scent I have ever put my nose on---and I have tried quite a few---and it's quality through and through. How does it smells? Like a campfire complete with burning embers and smokey ash - period! Performance is excellent in that it lasts a solid 10+ hours on my skin, and project a heavy campfire scent trail (but not beastly) for the first 2-3 hours before becoming more subtle. Incendo is a perfect Fall/Early Winter scent. On the negative side, it is not very versatile and if you're into smokey campfire scents, then there's a good change you won't like this offering. I like this campfire fragrance better than Rouge Bunny Rouge Embers and Perris Monte Carlo Oud Imperial when it comes to capturing that smokey campfire essence.