"If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."
So begins Rudyard Kipling's legendary poem, which, for all the striking and undeniable faults of the author, has endured to become a paean to lives lived with clear eyes and gusto, lives where, to paraphrase Kipling, Triumph and Disaster are two imposters to be treated just the same. Inspired by his grandfather's spirited retelling of the poem, Frapin artistic director David Frossard was traveling south down the Indian coast when he was struck with the desire to create a scent dedicated to travel, adventure, self-discovery, and constant personal improvement. The scent itself is a dashingly spicy masculine that whisks us across the subcontinent with fiery pepper from Karnataka igniting a heady dose of ginger and cinnamon, before balancing it out with a cool, milky fig. At the intersection of spicy and creamy is the main ingredient, precious sandalwood from Mysore, the finest in the world, which finds robust partners in a base of Indonesian patchouli, Peruvian guaiac, and Venezuelan tonka- a rich, smooth, powerful combination for any man ready to seize his destiny. Make no mistake- Kipling himself was not, by any means, a role model. But If by RK transcends the flaws of the man to capture the core of why his words have remained so firmly etched in the public consciousness for all these years.
Ginger, pepper, bergamot, fig milk, cinnamon, cashmere wood, sandalwood, patchouli, guaiac, tonka bean
Perfume rating 4.21 out of 5 on Fragrantica