D.S. & Durga

Radio Bombay Perfume (50mL)

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Transistor radio hewn of sandalwood radiates ragas in the Bandra heat. Hot copper tubes warm the soft wood releasing blooms of musk, cream, peach, ambrette, coco, cedar distillates.

TOP NOTES: radiant wood, copper, cedar

HEART NOTES: sandalwood, radiant iris, boronia

BASE NOTES: balsam fir absolute, coconut musc, ambergris

LINER NOTES: I am interested in hypothetical scent. Not everything has a strong or readily perceivable aroma, but objects can suggest a fragrance. Light bulbs glow. Electricity courses through their metal filaments. They melt the dust on their surface emitting wisps of heat. The tubes in amplifiers have a certain aroma. When my ‘69 Fender Deluxe gets heated-up (after rip-roaring monster shredding), the back of the amp produces a hot dusty metallic grease perfume - the scent of backstage in a humid venue. So what if there was a tube amplifier in an old radio made of sandalwood? Then the interaction of the heat would open up the pores of the wood, singing its smooth elegant fragrance - puffs of musky cedar, peach, coconut, lactones, milk. Real sandalwood essence is perfection. I often wear it neat. It smells of India, effigies, purity, focus. Unfortunately, it has been overharvested, so perfumers don’t use the oil from Mysore anymore. Radio Bombay is a deconstruction of the Mysore santal rebuilt from all the aspects written above. I imagine the radio sitting in a small hot shop in Bandra - the “Brooklyn” of Bombay (sorry). The heat deconstructs the oils in the wood. Ragas and Geeta Dutt tunes jangle out of its tiny speaker in the busy city.