WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING

“Eternal sunshine of the soul…” is the tagline for Soleil Invisible, described to me by Joseph Quartana as essentially warm, comforting light, rising out of the wreckage. To accomplish this, the typical pyramid is reversed, and it’s a very surprising feat.

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Your first smell is wholeheartedly a base accord, twinged with tangerine hints of what’s to come later. Smoke for days, softened with green earth. Tarry vetiver, sweet-smoke guiac wood, and the “earthy musk” are huge stars in this chorus that smell like the finale in the first verse. As the smoke drifts, crafted into the journey is a mounting sense of something bright beginning to rise. There’s a glowing citrus way, way in the distance – the first hazy, vaporous sunrise rays emerging almost imperceptibly into the night sky, until you begin to feel a nourishing lightness, a je ne sais quois change in the air. Floral-with-a-bite pink pepper, rose, vanilla, and citrus play the part of the dawning morning as tangerine shimmers drift in and out of perception. You smell all the edges here, but the beauty is that you progressively smell them soften into the shadow of a vanilla sunrise.

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What ends up being left is a highly memorable, hard-to-describe scent full of warm brightness, a solar fragrance for all intents and purposes, but nestled in an encroaching cloud of comforting smokiness betraying all its aggressive strength – a warm smile that hints at the mornings to come, directly in the middle of the darkest night.

— Patrick Rhys, Fragrantica