Fireplace by Demeter Fragrance Library

At first it smells like a cheery, not-too-intense fire (Sonoma Scent Studio's Bonfire, this is not), and later on, it smells like warmed sweater. Completely true to life, short-lived, and as a fragrance goes, useless. I guess it's another win for Demeter, though, because they do the previous three things well.

Neither unflinchingly smokey nor unflinchingly woody, Fireplace forgoes bottling a fire in favour of telling a little story about one. An ephemeral moment of savoury smoke and booze (the fire that cooks your food), giving way to a longer bout of something like the remains of cooling incense (the fire at which you worship), joined in the end by clean, soft musks (the ashes with which you make your soap). All in all, a nice, unassuming little tale.

Mmmm, warm and cosy and woody and boozy. Not exactly fiery though. It reminds me of Comme des Garcons' Palisander, the same warm, red wood note and it even has a more subtle version of the same soapy clean undertone that makes it smell like some expensive masculine perfume.