Rauque by Roberto Greco

Finally, my bottle arrived. Oh my god! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I’ve never smelled anything like this. I’ve been wearing it for five hours and… I’m utterly stunned. This is absurd. I really don’t know how to describe it yet. Let’s see. It feels like it’s alive. Literally. As if I’ve been soaked in the vital fluid of a living, pulsating alien being that inhabits a misty forest and harbors a cornucopia of organisms, both carnal and ethereal. Mycelium, humus, exotic flowers… fairies and spirits. A wild creature radiating a dizzying heat through every pore of its leathery skin, and exhaling a liquorish, sticky-sweet, spiced breath, almost like ambergris. The pine terpenes fill the air as it softly steps on fallen leaves and the undergrowth… What the hell is going on here? Am I falling in love? I’ll write a proper review once I manage to process it. Right now, I’m intoxicated and fascinated. What a wonder. ___ UPDATE AFTER SIX MONTHS (May 2025) Some perfumes describe a place, and others *are* a place—somewhere that doesn’t quite exist, but feels strangely familiar. Rauque is one of those. From the first spray, it drags me toward something dense, golden, and strange: violet leaf and bergamot flicker like light filtered through amber glass, and then the narcissus appears—wet, honeyed, almost vegetal. It’s not pretty, but it’s profoundly beautiful. There’s tobacco, but it doesn’t smell smoky or sweet. It’s more like the aroma of dry leaves underfoot, warmed by the sun, with that animalistic, dusty edge of pine tar and leather peeking through from below. The leather is flexible, slightly oily, touched by osmanthus, and vibrates with a strange, almost wild energy—as if something is breathing slowly in a dark stable. The labdanum (or rather, the Ambra-Rome) gives it depth without making it heavy. It doesn’t wear like a big chypre or a retro accord; it moves, changes, floats. There’s a lot of movement, but it never becomes chaotic. It smells of forms of life we know… and others that still have no name. What strikes me most is the texture. It’s as if Sheldrake managed to trap breath, light, and skin in a bottle. The fragrance doesn’t just evolve—it wanders. Small flashes: soap foam made with old fat and herbs, a flicker of overripe fruit, and then again the calm, almost paper-like freshness of the narcissus. It has an internal rhythm that doesn’t care about the time of day, or whether it should be masculine or feminine. It simply is. I don’t usually use the words “masterpiece.” But I think this one is. Not in the polished, gallery-art sense, but in the other way: like a painting or a piece of music that stops you dead in your tracks and leaves you blinking in the sun, not quite sure what just happened. Rauque is that moment. It lives in its own time, and I’m glad I can visit it.

Christopher Sheldrake hits the nail on the head again. It’s a fascinating fragrance, very vintage, singular, and mysterious. Floral notes dominate, though I also perceive fruity accords that aren’t immediately recognizable, along with leather, pine, and mushrooms. A masterpiece.