Byredo Black Saffron is a perfume for a stock broker. A bit of red berries in the opening keep it fun, and then the heart has that synthetic leather note that’s in Tom Ford Tuscan Leather, but the drydown is dry and ashy with vetiver.

I can’t smell any saffron in this, and it’s too bad that the copy talks about Indian heritage and all that, because I’m hard pressed to think of anything even remotely Indian when I smell this, but India is a big country so what do I know.

Anyway, this is for your stock broker friends – they work hard, play hard. They want something expensive but not with too much complexity because they don’t want to be distracted. Black Saffron sounds exotic and makes them seem cultured, but the minimalist packaging reflects their inability to escape that colonialist idea that colour and complexity is bad.

We wait for them to try ayahuasca and discover ambers.