A delicious take on the traditional colognes except it has more depth, more character and is hugely more intricate. Think Acqua di Parma on creatine and steroids.

As with all Gorilla Perfumes, this is also based on another wonderful adventure of Mark Constantine. The Smell of Freedom is a combination of three unique perfumes born out of the tales of three survivors of hardship.

The first was inspired by an Australian aboriginal artist and a painting depicting an Aborigine who had been wrongly executed – The fragrance is floral and woody because he chose Australian sandalwood, lemon myrtle and fire tree oil. The second is a journey that Simon made through India to meet a Tibetan monk. It has a spicy, oriental smell thanks to all the ginger, clove and black pepper. Finally, after meeting Sami who was held in Guantanamo Bay and then freed, Simon created a powdery, woody fragrance using Oudh, frankincense and sandalwood.

Altogether there’s lemon myrtle, fire tree, ginger, clove, black pepper, Oudh, frankincense and sandalwood. It’s very sultry and the base notes are distinct enough to pick them out individually rather than leaving you overwhelmed by a sweltering stack of heavyness. The lemon myrtle lifts the entire scent. Think about a large round table covered in a huge, white, cotton table-cloth. See it? Now go to the centre and pinch the middle of the table-cloth and start to lift it. That’s how this is structured, a conical pinched top note, draping evenly to a wide base.

Through the day, it changes and adapts. On me, the fragrance’s ginger and black pepper notes become more prominent, but the lemon still keeps it a little juicy. Throughout the span of the fragrance, the Oudh whips through and curves around each note, adding to it’s overwhelming masculinity.

It’s delicious and an inadvertent, modern take on an old classic. For what it is, I was shocked to discover it’s only £33 as it has the quality of a much more pricey fragrance. Check it out here over at Lush’s website. The Smell Of Freedom comes in an atomizer, spritzer and solid fragrance, the one pictured is the atomizer.