BUEN CAMINO

Eau de Parfum

When perfumer Carter Weeks Maddox was 23, he walked the 600-mile-long, 5,000-year-old route we now call the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. By the time he was within 200 miles of my finish line, he'd shattered bones all over both feet, caught a wicked blood poisoning that turned abrasions into infections all over his body, and withered to a weight he'd not been since middle school.

Buen Camino gathers scents from this last stretch of Camino when his health was at its all-time worst. Here are the stiff bandage wraps that held together his shattered feet, the antiseptics a kindly old nun used to clean out my infections, and the bundle of dried Iberian lavender and immortelle she gave him to inhale for relaxation as she conducted that painful, makeshift surgery. Here is the hot asphalt of newly paved roads, the dust of ancient, decaying Roman ones, and the pervasive smell of sweat and grime that permeated his backpack. And here's the slice of Tarta de Santiago—a Galician almond cake scented with spiced oranges and lemon, served with espresso—that he shared with his father, who, worried about my rapidly declining health, traveled to Spain to care for him during his final four days on the trail, lending Carter his shoulder to lean on as his walking pace slowed to a pained and belabored snail crawl.

This 16% concentrated eau de parfum has been called a "psychotic fougère." And it may overwhelm during its cacphonous and rapid-paced early stages as, like the Camino, it twists, turns and loses all sense of orientation. But in its long dry down, it ultimately provides comfort and reinvigorates a genre aching for new dynamism.

Composition:

• Lemon, Spiced Orange, Asphalt
• French Lavender, Dust, Immortelle, Sweat
• Almond Cake, Espresso

Perfumer: Carter Weeks Maddox, 2020

inci list: alcohol denat., fragrance (parfum), may contain any of the following: amyl cinnamal, amyl cinnamyl alcohol, anise alcohol, benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate, benzyl cinnamate, benzyl salicylate, cinnamal, cinnamyl alcohol, citral, citronellol, coumarin, eugenol, farnesol, geraniol, hexyl cinnamate, hydroxycitronellal, isoeugenol, limonene, linalool, hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene, carboxaldehyde, methyl-2 octynoate, alpha-isomethyl ionone, evernia prunastri (oakmoss) extract, evernia furfuracea (treemoss) extract