Common Scents: Graphite

The fragrance Graphite: Claude Montana is “for men who write their own life...”:

“Aesthete, involved in his choices, with a beautiful scent culture, he does not wear Graphite by chance, but because he likes it and looks alike, dry and wood, leathery, definitely masculine. Individualistic and sometimes lonely as a wolf, seductive and skittish...The kind of man who wrote his life in black ink.”

Do I write my life in black ink? I tend to write in Microsoft Word and then upload it to the Salem Chapel blog. There is no graphite or black ink in sight. The sales patter, helpfully translated from the French, goes on to explain the choice of trademark:

“Black mineral, dense and deep, graphite has been used for centuries for writing or drawing ... the word comes from ancient Greek: γράφειν (graphein) "write" and ίτης (-ite) "mineral". This dark sight with a submetallic sparkle has inspired Nathalie Lorson, perfumer at Firmenich, for the design of GRAPHITE, a "dusky fragrance". She chose some beautiful natural materials such as Bourbon pepper, violet leaf and guaiac wood to bring sensuality and depth of the black colour.”

We like to think that we write our own chapters and our life is an autobiographical book of our own, erudite authorship. In reality, we are the slave of passions and the prisoner of circumstance. Psalm 139:16 (NKJV) declares:

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

As well as life’s banalities and difficulties, there is another pen recording and ordering our lives, one held by the Living God. His people in particular are guarded and protected by His eternal decrees; His providences are not always to our liking, but we are better off trusting God’s decisions than our own whimsical wisdom.

To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord. Psalm 149:9

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