Mangosteen. The Sandal Strap

Sep 2

3 min read

Updated: Oct 16

Olfactorium

Asya was buckling a new sandal on the stairs, and the prong kept slipping off the hole: the strap was stiff, straight from the shop, and rubbed her ankle bone. The stairwell smelled of warm dust. July was in its third week.

At the office the air conditioner hummed and gave almost nothing. Papers stuck to her fingers, white sun crawled across the glass, and by lunchtime everyone spoke in low voices, as if loud sounds heated the air too.

Every evening her colleagues went up to the roof, where the breeze from the river reached the sixth floor. Vika had invited Asya three days running, and three days running Asya said "next time" and rode home on a stuffy bus.

That morning she took a bottle from the drawer, a gift from the spring, and touched the stopper to both wrists. Mangosteen flashed with a spark of lemon, as if someone had opened a window, and at once filled with the velvet of peach and apricot.

By noon the juicy heart had opened on her skin: melon, mango, strawberry, a cool rose somewhere in the middle. Asya caught herself lifting her hand to her face again and again, breathing deeper than in the morning.

Vika leaned over her desk for the stapler and froze. "What is that on you? You smell like you just came back from the sea," said Vika. Asya laughed and held out her wrist.

In the evening, when sandalwood and patchouli were warming her skin with soft wood, Asya pressed the top button in the lift herself. On the roof she took off her sandals, sat on the warm parapet and listened to the swifts over the river until dark.

She walked home. At the door she bent to buckle the strap, and the prong slipped easily into the hole: over the day the leather had worn in and gone soft.

How it smells

The opening is bright and juicy: lemon gives a spark, apricot and peach add velvet, and osmanthus lights them with a floral, dried-fruit shimmer.

The heart is built around mangosteen, surrounded by melon, mango, pineapple, strawberry, pomegranate, pitahaya and medlar, with rose holding the fruit basket in shape. It stays transparent and moist, like fresh flesh.

The base is sandalwood and patchouli: a warm creamy cushion, and in the trail a quiet sweetness, the aftertaste of fruit on skin.

What makes it special

The scent is dedicated to the mangosteen, a tropical fruit considered one of the most exquisite in the world. The fruit weaves many fruity shades with something elusive, and the composition gathers them around a single taste. Mangosteen belongs to the Olfactorium collection, a unisex scent for spring and summer.

"I heard white flesh, full of juice," writes Chernika9 on Kosmetista. "Exactly the mangosteen as it is. Simple, tasty, natural, light." She adds that it opens beautifully on both men and women and grows juicier and more multifaceted in cool weather.

Another Kosmetista reviewer calls it a complex, juicy, natural fruit scent she simply adores. Margarita Rodyushkina puts it simply: "sweetness, sweetness you want to breathe in again and again."

People wear it for summer in the palm of the hand: juicy fruit, lightness and a good mood in the heat.