Inexcusable Evil

After all the faff on social media I wanted to sniff it for myself. I am not familiar with bombed hospitals so I cannot really ascertain whether the impression is efficient, but I suspect it isn’t. It does open violently. People have said gunpowder, to me it was more a very strong flower-ozone with dusty, iodine undertones that I think vaguely recreate the metallic facet of the gunpowder. The ozone is very strong, almost grating, but also provides a sense of powdery cleanness to the perfume. Juxtaposed over the incense notes of sandalwood and the more vegetation rot ones of the nagarmotha, it makes it very wearable, almost like a medical soap, but also cools down what should have been a comforting base. Its overall dustiness evokes concrete and petrichor, but never truly gets there. When the potency of the ozone diminishes (or your nose accommodates, it is hard to tell), there is a 2-hour long phase where the dominant is incense. Then the incense dulls down to get more into a more iodine, sweet, metallic facet that is long lasting and perhaps a little invasive. This is the part where it becomes weird, because the impression keeps changing even though the profile isn’t. There is something about the balance of the scent itself that feels unstable. Overall, it is nowhere near as dramatic as people made it to be. I was expecting a gimmick and found a really well-balanced perfume. Its rotten vegetation flowery smell to me evoke more the scent of a lover left on a bed sheet than a war crime. In all honesty, it could smell like you had sex during your period but on a bed of flowers, which I would qualify as a fairly more excusable evil. I think what this perfume does very well is to preserve its ambivalence while taunting the magnetism of the incense. I find myself reaching for my wrists, almost if I were worried to lose the scent that I like, because from afar the dominant is clearly the flower and ozone which is colder. I have to reach closer to the skin to feel its warmth. This is obviously a known phenomenon in all perfumes, but the dissonance between the head notes and core notes create this bouncing back effect. I honestly love it, at least on my skin, which tends to favor leathers, incenses, woods and flowers, which might explain why I haven’t had so much iodine-blood. People whose skin reinforces more volatile scents might find is nauseating because the compensation effect of the wood incense isn’t as strong. To me it’s right on balance. It reminds of sex, and has a dimension of grief to it, maybe both because of the fleeting nature of the perfume, like having the whiff of something that you remember is inconvenient but meaningful, that survives across weathering, and that you want to see surviving. Really worth the experience and not in the way I expected.

Before getting into the scent itself, some context is important. Inexcusable Evil was created by perfumer David-Lev Jipa-Slivinschi as a deliberate conversation piece rather than a traditional fragrance. It was conceived during the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and just as the brand Toskovat was preparing to launch. The intent was not to make something pleasant or wearable, but to create almost like a form of protest against war. David has explained that images and videos of conflict can easily be scrolled past and forgotten, but a fragrance worn on the body you keep smelling throughout the day cannot be ignored. The goal was to make something so distracting and unsettling that it would prevent you from simply going on with your day. With that in mind, I decided to test Inexcusable Evil the way it was intended to be experienced. I applied it for a normal workday, using two sprays under my shirt and two on my elbows, keeping it restrained just in case its reputation was deserved. The impact was immediate. While it was not gag-inducing, it was undeniably unsettling. Almost instantly, my mood dropped, as if a gray cloud had settled over my head. The opening is intensely metallic and iodine-like, evoking concrete, antiseptic air, and sterile environments. It is loud, emotionally heavy, and fairly linear in its development. After a couple of hours, faint traces of dead or wilted florals begin to surface which help a little, but they do little to soften the overall impression. Shortly after arriving at work, I ended up washing the fragrance off my elbows. Not because it was traditionally offensive, but because I genuinely worried it might raise concern among my colleagues. It smelled less like a perfume and more like something associated with injury or medical treatment, and that reaction was not exaggerated. While it is not the most disgusting fragrance I have ever smelled, it is without doubt the most emotionally uneasy. By that measure, Inexcusable Evil is a complete success. It refuses to fade into the background or be treated casually, lingering not just on the skin but in the mind. This is not a fragrance designed for enjoyment, nor is it interested in being liked. Instead, it stands as a confrontational piece of perfumery, one that prioritizes message over comfort and impact over wearability. I do not enjoy the way it smells, but I cannot deny the clarity of its intent or the strength of its execution. As an artistic statement with clear moral weight, it proves that perfumery can function as protest just as effectively as it does as adornment. Well done, Toskovat.

War is but an eruption; the strife is what drags on, creating sorrow and woe. Inexcusable Evil is what I would call a statement fragrance, one that does exceedingly well with telling a story, a very vividly illustrated one that isn't always for the faint of heart. It opens with shots fired; the smell of gunpowder wafts outwards, mingling with blistering skies. Not too far away, these shots are heard, felt even as a nurse, young and in over her head, attempts to drown out the smell of a soldier's wounds with iodine. The ache of losing another has not yet settled for her, but to him, he's long accepted his death. Between shallow breaths, he wonders if his wife will leave flowers upon the damp soil of his grave, and in passing thought, he questions if his daughter will ever smile at the tire swing again the same way she used to when he was there to push her. It matters not... for with each flared nerve ending, he's pulled from his thoughts until they begin to fade alongside the voice of the nurse, the rain outside, and the sounds of thundering lead. From darkness we emerge, and into darkness we depart -- there is no light, only the faint glow of lit incense that barely casts enough warmth to reveal a concrete slab.... Story element aside, it is wearable, hardly as awful as some have claimed it to be. The scent profile can shift slightly with skin chemistry, but iodine usually remains pretty strong as the main note. It is VERY long-lasting, and surprisingly durable too; it took me some dedicated scrubbing to remove the one spray on my forearms. Though, does that make it worth $330? Not really, not unless you frame it as paying for art, which you know, this does very much qualify as art in a smell. ALSO, to me, a side-line game nerd, it definitely would smell like the Care Center from Resident Evil: Requiem, or well, any apocalyptic medical ward for that matter. If that or any of the above tickles your fancy, it's really cool!

I've been obssesed with this fragrance ever since I first encountered it on instagram review from my favourite frangrance influencer. I was eagered to smell "end of the world disgusting type of fragrance" and this one actually sparked my interest in the fragrance world. I finally got my hands on Inexcusable Evil this May. I remember how excited I was to have my first ever niche fragrance and also nervous, because I've heard lot of people almost vomited from smelling such a mixture of notes. Especialy the gun powder, iodine and blood notes. I expected the scent to be haunting and stomach turning. But my first impression of Inexcusable Evil (smelling it from the bottle) was not unpleasant at all. It smelled really warm, like bodily warm (still haven't figured out which note is that) followed by a short sweet but a bit dusty flowerly sesation, like decaying flowers and strong iodine climax with a really soft metallic note. The more times I smelled it I also started to smell something like bandages and my boyfriend said he smells that "old people" scent. For me from the bottle it smelled hauntingly beautiful (vampiric or ghostly vibes) and more tragic than evil, like cleaning a deceased patient's room in a hospital. I sprayed a little on my wrist and went on with my day, I was curious how this masterpiece would project on me. It was a hot summer day and after a few hours my nose was hit by an intense sharp cold scent, it felt like explosion for my nostrils. Immediately after it transformed into the metallic warm blood like smell. This bloody sinister smell dries down into a not so in your face metallic and incense smell. The depth of this fragrance amazes me to this day, it's not something to wear (not judging anyone who does tho), but it's something to experience. It's a true piece of art with a story told through a perfume. Absolutely love it.

Miałam okazję powąchać ten zapach i było to jedno z najbardziej niezwykłych doświadczeń olfaktorycznych, jakie kiedykolwiek przeżyłam. Pierwsze wrażenie, jakie do mnie dociera, to brud, kurz i smoła. Jest w nim coś osmalonego, jak sadza po podpaleniu czegoś. Cała sceneria, którą widzę w wyobraźni, to miejsce po wielkim pożarze – takie, w którym wydarzyło się coś bardzo złego. Wszystko jeszcze się dopala. Na przedmiotach osiada sadza, w powietrzu unosi się pył i proch. Proch strzelniczy w tej kompozycji odczuwam właśnie jako ten brudny, ciężki pył wiszący w powietrzu. W mojej wyobraźni pojawia się postać – coś w rodzaju Antychrysta ubranego w barokowy strój. Kamizelka, cylinder, to wszystko wzorzyst... ale wszystko pokryte kurzem i sadzą. Dla mnie ten zapach ma kolor czarny, szary, czerwony i fioletowy. Nie czuję dosłownie krwi, ale zdecydowanie czuję śmierć. Czuć, że w tej scenerii wydarzyło się coś złego i ciężkiego. W mojej wizji ta postać siedzi na drewnianym tronie, za którym unoszą się kule ognia. Tron zaczyna się zwęglać, wszystko powoli zamienia się w popiół. Ostatecznie dla mnie ten zapach pachnie przede wszystkim dymem, spaleniem i zniszczeniem. Ta postać –Antychryst, przychodzi tylko po to, żeby siać chaos i spustoszenie. I dokładnie taki jest charakter tego zapachu. Jest ciężki, smutny i przytłaczający, ale jednocześnie bardzo magnetyczny. Ku mojemu zaskoczeniu uważam go za noszalny. Oczywiście nie jest to zapach na codzienne okazje – raczej na bardzo konkretne, rzadkie momenty. W moim odczuciu mógłby to być nawet zapach pogrzebowy albo zapach na bardzo poważne, smutne uroczystości. Podejrzewam, że 90% ludzi absolutnie go nie polubi. Mimo to jest w nim coś niezwykle pociągającego. Czuć w nim smutek i spustoszenie, ale właśnie dlatego tak trudno się od niego oderwać.