Sillage

Four scents, ninety bottles at a time

Amaal Sadien — perfumer — 14 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock

Start with the vials

Who blends it

TRAINED Two years in Grasse under a working nose, then six at a flavour house in Isando making other people’s brands smell like themselves. WORKS FROM A converted garage off Sir Lowry Road in Woodstock. One bench, a fridge of absolutes and three hundred and forty bottles on the wall. BLENDS IN RUNS OF Ninety at a time. Macerated six weeks, chilled, filtered, then rested another two before anything goes into glass.

What goes in

Bitter orange peel, Citrusdal
Bitter orange peel, Citrusdal
Cedar and labdanum resin
Cedar and labdanum resin
Tuberose picked after dark
Tuberose picked after dark
Dried buchu and fynbos
Dried buchu and fynbos

Four scents, and what carries them

Buy the vials before you buy the bottle

R390 for six 2 ml vials of the whole range. Wear each one for a full day before you decide — what is right at eleven in the morning is often wrong by six. The R390 comes off your first bottle.

Take the discovery set

Sillage, 14 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock

The studio is open Thursday to Saturday, ten to four, and by appointment the rest of the week. Come and smell them on skin — a strip of blotter tells you almost nothing.