Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Black Gemstone (2013)

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ — masterpiece

Black Gemstone is a fragrance inspired by obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass that’s often  a deep black; and the artwork of Pierre Soulages, known as “the painter of black”.

I think the first time I heard about Black Gemstone was through Kafkaesque, one of my favorite sources for perfume inspiration. I’ve had Black Gemstone for about a year now and it’s the first fragrance I own that I’d call a masterpiece, modernist perfume alchemy’s ne plus ultra. It continues to take my breath away.

Notes

Black Gemstone’s official notes include:

Infusion of three Cedarwoods, Italian Lemon, Myrrh, Patchouli, Incense, Teak, Tonka Bean

The sweet, dusty, ancient concoction of olibanum (frankincense), cedars, myrrh, opoponax (sweet myrrh) and teakwood (accord?) is buoyed by sweet Italian lemon and tonka bean, the citrus and legume not so much brightening up or sweetening the scent as much as taming the overall woody-incense dryness. Stellar.

On initial spritz I sense a prominent blast of a sweet, medicinal quality that may perhaps be the patchouli, or perhaps it’s the myrrh, I’m not really sure – and I think that’s part of what makes Black Gemstone so wondrous: you can sense a lot of these individual materials, but they come together in a particular configuration to create something hauntingly beautiful, an olfactory symphony composed of earthly materials whose ordinary individual perfections, unbeknownst to them, conjure up a transcendental beauty: an exemplar of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Through much of the wear I can’t tell that the patchouli makes its presence known in any dominant way, except in perhaps giving depth and accentuating the cedars.

Cedarwoods are often used as a base note in many perfumes, acting as a fixative for more ephemeral citrus and floral notes. Here, the cedars are quite prominent right from the top through the heart and the drydown.

After the initial spray, the honey-like sweetness of opoponax (sweet myrrh) blossoms. The sweetness eventually recedes away in the background before coming back later, drier: probably the tonka bean?

Pierre Soulages, Peinture 324 x 362 cm (Polyptyque J), 1987, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne

While Black Gemstone is ostensibly a scent of “black at its blackest”, lest you start wondering, we are not talking about a punch in the face like Black Afgano, an example of a scent that many associate with “black” and “dark,” which rvadati on Fragrantica refers to as “baby's candy next to [Black Gemstone]”.

On my skin Black Gemstone isn’t overly resinous, neither is it overly smokey or dark – although it is all three of them. It’s also dry – dusty in the same way I find Au Coeur du Désert – but creamier. Growing up, my brother and I would spend our summer vacations in my father’s ancestral home in Kerala where all the furniture, a lot of the reinforcement, and the roof were made from teakwood; we also had teak trees growing in the compound surrounding the house. I don’t remember associating the quality of the scent to teakwood, specifically,  except to think that the house effused an aroma that was soft, musty and creamy; like wood and dusty, old books. I have never smelled the resin obtained from teakwood (which is what I assume is used in the perfume), but something about Black Gemstone harkens back to memories of my cousins, my brother, and I scattered around in that living room in Kozhikode, sitting under a dark, wooden staircase.

Pierre Soulages, Painting, August 1, 1956, MoMA

Through much of this olfactory journey, I sense a faint but persistent whiff of something cool-smokey: camphorous woody-incense, which I smell more discernibly if I bring my nose closer to my skin. Black Gemstone eventually settles into a dry, sweet, resinous, woody-incense base.

In Black Gemstone Stéphane Humbert Lucas isn’t simply paying lip service to Pierre Soulages’ artworks’ blackness, he’s doing with scents what Pierre Soulages did with ink: outrenoir (or beyond back), a name the latter gave for his practice of producing monochrome paintings in black ink. Black Gemstone’s olfactory landscape traipses around and in black, revealing highlights and withholding secrets, an olfactory landscape shrouding you in layers, shades and textures of black. You are impelled to quiet introspection; categories and concepts start collapsing away; sense and experience coalesce, engendering spirituality itself manifest.

When to wear

Black Gemstone is a sacred antidote for cool, grey days and nights, particularly in the fall and winter. I have worn it on warmer days, but I found it felt anatopic, not unlike reading Kant’s moral philosophy on a sunny day laying by the water in the Maldives.

Projection, Sillage and Longevity

On my skin, projection is moderate and sillage is moderate. Longevity is easily upwards of eight hours, often lasting the entire day.

Where to buy

Black Gemstone comes in a 50ml bottle in eau de parfum haute concentration, which seems to me an extrait de parfum concentration.

Buying perfumes can often be cheaper in Europe, even without duty free.  At Harrods in London, it felt sacrilegious to find Stephan Humbert Lucas’ creations relegated to the pedestrian Perfumery Hall while the likes of Kilian and Bond No. 9 elevated to the faux-gilded, plush chambers of the Salon de Parfums, but no matter, after tax rebate, I got my Black Gemstone for significantly less than the $290 it retails for in the US.

In the US you can buy Black Gemstone at Luckyscent for $290, and in my opinion, absolutely worth it.