Description
“Kodama 木(wood) 霊(sprite) eau de parfum is a close-wearing silk robe, attenuated for your own personal enjoyment and for the haunting trail that your lover will associate with you, and you alone. This scent draws you into a lingering embrace, for just one more moment to deeply inhale you, it summons the sort of kisses on the back of your neck that carry you away. Kodama features hand-tinctured Murraya Blossoms, Egyptian Geranium, Orange Blossom, Vietnamese Oud, Mysore Sandalwood, hand-tinctured Tonka beans, Ambrette Seed and my Woods accord of Cedarwood, Cypress, Spruce and Fir Needle. Featuring a very large amount of pure Vietnamese oud, Kodama is best suited to noses that know and love real oud, and the leathery green notes that underpin the soft woods and delicate florals of the composition. A perfume for perfumists. Unisex. Elegant. Delicate. Superb.” – a note from the brand.
Kodama 木霊 was launched in 2018. The nose behind this fragrance is Teone Reinthal.
spoonsnake – :
i have two samples of kodama – one is from an earlier stage in its creation and the other is the final article. i’m going to include a quick review of the proto-version, as the final version is essentially a deeper, rounder, and ultimately more ‘complete’ experience.
proto-kodama opens with a massive amount of geranium, green and metallic as anything, blinding and cold, though in time it’s tamed by the emerging murrayas orange blossoms and that vietnamese oud backdrop, blunting the sharp white-silver colours with oranges, bright greens and dark browns, thoroughly a ‘forest’ scent in nature. on my skin the geranium contributes to that interesting minty, menthol, fir-tree quality vietnamese oud has, almost like a sweet, mild forest airiness in my opinion. the texture of raw leather emerges to disrupt the smoothness, a warm and thick hide against the freeze. from a distance i can still pick up the murraya on a cool woody breeze, but close up is where the intensity and more of the texture lies. I can detect the tonka; not the almondy sweetness i dislike, but a dry grass mat beneath my toes, dusty and comforting but textured. I’m not overly familiar with ambrette but I believe it’s adding to a musky affect with the oud and the leathery impression. sandalwood begins to lend a milky-wood and slightly powdery feeling. now into the drydown the flowers featured in the opening and mid shrink back their petals to buds and retreat to the shadows. any light has dimmed to almost blackness. no more silvery light from the geranium. leather has shed its textured animal-aspects and become smooth as silken grey smoke. tonka sleeps silently, breathing a fine cloud of dust. musk billows out from underneath this with the sandalwood and oud fuse into an incense-like aroma. warm, deep, bottomless – an interior space without end. the deep inner cloister of an empty temple, deep in the darkest woods, where incense ashes swirl in coils through the oblivion of night, like the faint speckled stars in an endless black sky.
now, kodama in its final presentation improves further upon this beautiful formula. even smoother and airier, with floral-citrus / incense aspects, so clean and clear in the opening like a sphere of quartz, the sharper metallic edges sheared off, already lying on a bed of dense and deeply musky ancient woods. it smells similar to proto, but it *feels* different – truly a textural, multifaceted experience in perfume as opposed to one of just smell. now the florals are blooming more, which is something I didn’t detect as much in proto. i believe in the final version doses of tuberose were added, and you certainly detect the creaminess of white flowers here, much more prismatic and shifting in nature than it’s earlier iteration. i thought this was going to settle into the leather and musk as in proto – it teetered on that edge and then, to my surprise, introduced the metallic geranium that was missing in the opening, like how sand moves in the wind to reveal softly what’s underneath, this time holding a fruity facet that augments the orange blossom beautifully. another thing i have to say about kodama at this point is the nature of the musk and leatheriness. something now is less raw and dusty about the leather; it speaks less of abandonment and more of presence, a warmth; creaminess and mild spiciness is present that I didn’t detect in proto. the flowers and even fruit are together in the drydown, not dried and ground to powder but picked perhaps a day or three ago and left as an offering. the incense is still burning as opposed to being piles of ashes.
all in all it, kodama feels ‘fresher’ and somehow less ancient in feel than its prior version – there’s human presence as opposed to endless emptiness. all in all, kodama is, finally, stunningly beautiful, quiet, and meditative. it speaks of the very journey it has taken to reach its final point.
semenovich – :
Opening of Kodama has a dynamic great tree atmosphere. It become a scent which is more amber strengthened and is grounded to mother earth. The scent begins with spicy cedarwood and warm amber. Cypress adds a little cool mood to the natural sweet orange blossom and the smart geranium, and eventually it turns into a fluffy oriental natural floral. It’s not heavy but is stable and soft. While rustic, it’s elegant. It’s the long-lasting and the dry-down is beautiful. I can recommend Kodama to a person who is pressed for time. If a person wears it and close eyes, she/he will be relax soon. Earthy and woody oriental floral. Gentle scent.