Imagine yourself arriving at one of the antique libraries at Oxford University in England. As you enter through the arched doorway, the wooden floor beneath you begins to softly squeak. You continue down the hallway, past the librarian’s desk to where the endless rows of bookshelves are. As you pass each row, you inhale the scent of cedar from the floorboards and desks, along with hints of paper and wax from the old books. You stop and take a turn down one of the rows, lightly skimming your finger along the spines of books that have been there for decades. You pause, and through the silent air you can make out soft whispers. You follow the sound, intrigued. The scent of old books follows you, and every so often you get a subtle whiff of vanilla. As you turn another corner, you see two women. They are staring at you, whispering about you, wanting to be closer to you …
Now imagine if all of the above were to be captured in a fragrance. Luxury French fashion house Maison Margiela has branched into the world of fragrance with a brand called Replica—“Memory in a Fragrance.” Each gender-neutral scent is designed to capture a specific moment in time. Some examples of their fragrance names include Jazz Club, Lazy Sunday Morning, Beach Walk, Coffee Break and Whispers in the Library, which, as you can guess, is the scent being reviewed today.
Whispers in the Library is designed to take its wearer to a library in Oxford circa 1997. All Replica fragrances come in a simple clear-glass bottle, with large cotton labels on the front that detail the origin and fragrance chords. The key scent notes in this fragrance are vanilla absolute (oil extracted from a vanilla bean), benzoin resinoid (resin collected from the bark of evergreen trees, which has a warm, sweet vanilla scent), cedarwood and an essence of pepper. Combined, they create a sultry-yet-warm fragrance. Once you inhale the scent, you definitely feel like you have been transported to an old library that houses many secrets, and that everyone in the library knows them except for you.
Replica aims for their scents to be unisex. In the case of Whispers in the Library, the scent definitely comes across as intriguing and alluring. It is not an overpowering scent, nor is it very strong. It is a scent that is beautifully crafted to release all of its scents perfectly. The vanilla notes make it feminine enough for a woman to wear, while the cedar and pepper bring some masculinity to the fragrance. Gentlemen, do not be discouraged by the vanilla in this scent, as it blends beautifully with the woods, pepper and wax, creating a scent that is mysterious, yet addictive. Any woman who catches a whiff of this will be tempted to follow you and possibly whisper how much they love the way you smell.
