Escentric 05

Escentric 05 is a love letter to Cashmeran, an abstraction of summer on a Mediterranean island.

Cashmeran, created in a laboratory at the IFF in the late 1970s, is one of the greats of synthetic chemistry. Warm and woody, with a resinous pine note, it has an unusually complex character for a single molecule.

For Escentric 05 100ml, Geza Schoen wanted to recreate the experience of a Mediterranean island, drawing from his summers spent there. The scent pairing explores the idea of a modern Cashmeran fragrance with notes of bergamot, laurel, rosemary, cistus, fig, juniper, hedione, and of course, 15% Cashmeran.

“What you notice as you walk up the path from the sea is how the heat changes plants and trees; they turn dry, resinous and aromatic,” says Geza. “The top note of Escentric 05 is very simple: bergamot to keep things light, and orange, an ingredient which has an emotional tone to it, bright and happy. It reflects the orange groves that cover the island. Laurel and rosemary are typical Mediterranean plants with a spicy freshness. Juniper brings a herbal tonality, and cypress is a very dry, pungent wood.”

The drydown has two classic Mediterranean ingredients: cistus labdanum and mastic. Mastic is a resin produced by a small tree that grows especially near the sea. It has a sweet, leathery, balsamic quality. Cashmeran gives the fragrance its piney warmth.

“I also introduced a subtle fig, both the bitterness of the leaves and the ripeness of the fruit. Figs had to be in there because there is a fig tree by our house on the island. Fig feels authentic to the place; it reminds me of the happiness of summer by the sea,” says Geza.

The result is an award-winning oceanic summer fragrance that isn’t fuelled by lunar exotic boring florals and is instead charged with psychedelic freshness. E05 100ml is the equivalent of a cosy cashmere jumper dripped in the Mediterranean.