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Opus Noir — Maison de Parfum
Opus Noir

Opus Noir

One Hundred Flacons. One Formula. Extrait de Parfum · 50 ml Edition MMXXVI
Scroll

02The Accord

Eight materials. No substitutes.

The formula was fixed in a single sitting and has not been adjusted since. Where a material could not be sourced at grade, the batch was not made. What follows is the whole of it — top, heart and base, in the order the skin meets them.

01 / 08

TopSmoked Saffron

Threads scorched briefly before extraction. Opens hot and metallic, closer to struck flint than to spice, and burns off inside ten minutes.

Crimson saffron threads on dark slate
02 / 08

TopDamascus Plum

Over-ripe, pressed with the skin left on. Supplies the weight that keeps the saffron from reading thin, and the only sweetness in the composition.

A halved black plum glistening with nectar
03 / 08

HeartBlack Orchid

Harvested at night, when the flower gives up its indole. Faintly animalic underneath the green — the reason the heart is difficult and the reason it stays.

A dark purple orchid on wet black marble
04 / 08

HeartBulgarian Rose

Four thousand kilos of petal to the litre of absolute. Used at two percent, purely to round the orchid's edge. Never legible on its own.

A black-crimson rose petal holding a single bead of water
05 / 08

BaseAssam Oud

Twenty-year infected heartwood, distilled in copper over four days. Smoke, leather and something faintly sour. This is the spine of the fragrance.

A charred agarwood chip with a glowing resin seam
06 / 08

BaseGrey Ambergris

Beach-cured, never harvested. Contributes no scent of its own — it lengthens everything else, and is the reason the drydown runs past nine hours.

A raw ambergris stone lit from within
07 / 08

BaseFrankincense

Boswellia sacra, first tapping. Cool and resinous against the oud's heat; the interval between the two is where the composition actually lives.

Golden frankincense resin running down charcoal
08 / 08

BaseHaitian Vetiver

Root washed but not deodorised, so the soil stays in. Grounds the resins and stops the drydown turning sweet as it fades.

A bundle of dried vetiver roots on wet black stone
It should not smell expensive.
It should smell inevitable.

03The Alchemy

Filled by hand.

Maceration runs eleven weeks in steel before a drop reaches glass. Each flacon is filled, weighed and sealed individually — the pipette is not theatre, it is how the tolerance is held. A batch that drifts outside it is not corrected. It is poured away.

Concentration
Extrait, 28%
Maceration
11 weeks
Fill tolerance
± 0.4 ml
Longevity
9—12 hours
00°

04The Flacon

Cut, not moulded.

Six broad facets ground into solid crystal, a champagne gold collar milled to seat flush, and a stopper heavy enough that the bottle will not tip. Three finishes. The formula inside does not change.

Active Formula
The amethyst crystal flacon

Noir Améthyste

Smoked violet crystal · gold

Select Finish
The obsidian finish flacon

Obsidian

Frosted carbon · titanium

Select Finish
The gold-leaf finish flacon

Or Impérial

Clear crystal · 24k leaf

Macro of the engraved champagne gold collar

Every collar is
struck and numbered.

The engraving is cut, not printed — OPUS NOIR · MMXXVI around the collar, with the flacon's number opposite. At one hundred pieces the die is destroyed.

Two hundred and ten
grams of glass.

The flacon was weighted deliberately. It is heavier than it needs to be, sits low in the hand, and takes a moment to set down. That moment is the point.

The flacon held between thumb and forefinger against black

001 — 100 · Allocated

The Reserve

Presented in a rigid case lined with aubergine velvet, with a struck gold plaque carrying the flacon's number and a signed record of the batch. When the hundredth is spoken for, the formula is retired.

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