Launched in 2014 by Canoe Goods, Skive, is the winner of the 2015 Art and Olfaction Award in the Independent Category once you smell it, you’ll understand why. On me, Skive opens smoky, sweet and woody from choya loban, a distillation of Indian frankincense. The smokiness trails through the fragrance and calls up a note of Atlas cedarwood, which brings a subtle balsamic freshness and dry woodiness to the opening. Ambrette, sweet, ambery and musky, appears, joined by castoreum, which picks up the slightly animal scent of the ambrette and heightens it before blooming into the smell of well-worn, supple, sensuous leather, that’s like nothing I have smelled in other fragrance. As it evolves, a note of clary sage shows up. It’s fresh and botanical, with delicate musky facets highlighted by amber accents that help it blend right in. Myrrh is earthy and warm and balances the freshness of the clary sage. Nutmeg and saffron add more spicy warmth. Tobacco blends well with castoreum, cedar and sage, allowing its sweet, herbaceous and woody nature to shine. Ms. Davis is a tea lover, and tobacco's tea facet is a wink to that. Vetiver here is sweet, leathery, earthy and smoky. It loops back to those notes and is the perfect way to draw Skive to a close. Skive dries to a warm, soft, subtly sweet, graceful leather scent. There is nothing sharp, pungent or overbearing, and the transitions from note to note are barely perceptible. Breaking it down by note is a real disservice because it’s the scent of an experience. So, here’s how it smells. We have a cabin in the country, no running water, no electricity. When we go there, we cook over a campfire, we hike in the woods, we swim in a pristine lake. I bought a used leather coat from a thrift store many years ago that I keep at the cabin. It’s so worn; it’s taken the shape of my body like a second skin. Over the years, it has come to smell of the sun warming the wood walls, the smoky campfires, the earth beneath our feet, and the plants and trees we walk through. This is Skive. Notes: ambrette, Atlas cedarwood, castoreum, choya loban, clary sage, myrrh, nutmeg, saffron, tobacco, vetiver.
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