Bonfire moon, Tilda’s birthday, and the ink-black pull of vetiver

The sky did its feral thing at dawn - that swollen Beaver supermoon lingering as if it had a secret. It’s also Tilda Swinton’s birthday and Guy Fawkes Day, which makes me want a perfume that prowls instead of purrs. I went straight for Lalique Encre Noire. Inky, rooty, and beautifully indifferent to small talk, it opens like damp graphite snapped in two, then settles into that swamp-cool vetiver core I crave when the world feels a little too bright. If Wednesday had a spine, this would be it.

Bonfire mood on the agenda tonight. If you want sparks, there’s the toasted-chestnut glow of Maison Margiela Replica By the Fireplace. If you prefer your smoke with maritime bite, Beaufort London 1805 Tonnerre delivers flint, salt, and cordite like a storm that refuses to clear. For something stranger and warmer in honor of Tilda Swinton, I keep Etat Libre d’Orange Like This close. Ginger, pumpkin, immortelle - it reads like a candlelit kitchen where someone brilliant walked out mid-sentence and left the door ajar. It’s not pretty. It’s compelling.

Consider this your gentle nudge for 11/7: vetiver day. Line up the classics and the troublemakers. Guerlain Vetiver is brisk white shirt energy with a whisper of tobacco. Tom Ford Grey Vetiver is the clean, high-window version for glass cities and long corridors. Frédéric Malle Vetiver Extraordinaire takes the grass to cathedral heights - cool, airy, almost mineral. Chanel Sycomore drifts toward smoky elegance, like a tweed jacket that remembered last night’s fire. Hermès Terre d’Hermès gives you that citrus-mineral hum that makes vetiver feel sunlit. And yes, Encre Noire belongs in the lineup - the shadow that makes everything else look sharper.

I’m wearing wool and black liner and letting Encre Noire do what it does best - erase the edges and draw new ones. If the fireworks haze hangs low later, I might switch to Like This to keep the warmth close to skin. The moon is still loud. Let your perfume answer back.