Barrister and Mann Eigengrau Shaving Soap

In 2003, the House of Malle released one of its strangest, most ethereal creations: L'Eau d'Hiver, the smell of sunlight on snow. Characterized by perfumer Jean-Claude  Ellena's artful use of powdery heliotrope and iris and accented by white musks, honey, and flowers, it was heralded at the time as one of the  most artistically elegant creations of the time.

In the years since, no one else seems to have attempted any variations on the idea. L'Eau d'Hiver has stood alone as the most pure expression of the smell of Winter ever devised, and its bright, chipper nature and refined French pedigree tend to give the wearer an impression of sunlit ski slopes and thick woolen sweaters.

But that was then. And there are places in the world where Winter is a decidedly less cheerful affair.

Eigengrau is meant to be the inverse of L'Eau d'Hiver, the smell of moonlight  on snow. The very essence of the desolate elegance of a frigid  mountainside, framed by pristine snow and forbidding pines, so isolated  that you feel as though you stand at the edge of the world. Notes of heliotrope and iris bring forth the smell of desiccated powder, underlaid with the smell of frigid air and primeval accents of lichen, moss, vetiver, and fir needle. A vivid rendering of one of the most  starkly bewitching sights that the North has to offer, Eigengrau is a reminder that in the dark and the bleak may be found some of the most enrapturing beauty of all.