I am not one who says prayers. Yet there is a piece of poetry which has spoken to me from the time I first read it as a teenager; “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It is a poem of couplets each of which are meant to inspire a boy to be a man. My favorite is “If you can dream-and not make dreams your master; If you can think- but not make thoughts your aim”. This is taped over my computer monitor where I write for this blog. As I said I don’t formally pray but I regularly recite couplets from “If” when life presents situations which fit. My esteem for “If” made me very wary of a perfume attempting to use it as a brief. Despite those misgivings Frapin If by R.K. wants to try.
David Frossard
Those of you who have followed me know that Frapin is one of my very favorite perfume brands. Creative director David Frossard releases new product sporadically. It has been two years since there was last a new Frapin fragrance. I have always found that slower pace of production has produced perfumes which have spoken so strongly to me that it is one of the few brands I own a bottle of everything. If there was a brand I would want to turn my mantra into perfume this would be one of them.
Anne-Sophie Behaghel
M. Frossard collaborated with perfumer Anne-Sophie Behaghel. They had previously worked together on the only other poetry inspired fragrance in the collection, 2014’s Nevermore. For If by R.K. their vision was to capture the India of Rudyard Kipling by using perhaps its most famous perfume ingredient Mysore sandalwood.
The opening of If by R.K. is a spice-laden affair of ginger, pepper, and cinnamon. Mme Behaghel balances the kinetic heat of these ingredients into something which adds verve without taking over. She figuratively attenuates the spiciness with the creaminess of fig. I have long enjoyed a mixture of spice and fig. The accord here is as good as it gets. Underneath it all is the Mysore sandalwood. There is a quality to this source of the ubiquitous wood which is hard to match. Mme Behaghel wants to not step on the beauty of this. She adds in an earthy patchouli and allows this to form a container for the spicy fig accord from earlier. The final piece is a teasing out of the inherent sweetness of Mysore sandalwood as tonka and vanilla do such a good job it almost turns into a figgy custard gourmand in the later stages.
If by R.K. has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
This is a gorgeous perfume that I will be wearing throughout the next few months. It is the ideal choice for my favorite scarves. I think it is among the best Frapin has ever produced. Clearly M. Frossard knows both how to dream and think.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
