Alchemist Charlatan - Sleeping Quechua FUMparFUM 2022

I probably didn't really understand it.
For hours, our old Lada had been rolling through summer birch forests, and Grandma had dozed off beside me in the back seat while I watched my mother nervously fiddling with her brand-new suede gloves in the front seat. She was wearing the green dress made of silky fabric that she usually only took out of the closet when someone was getting married, and she had dressed me in my best clothes with such a solemn expression that it stifled any budding protest. My father smiled to himself at the wheel and drummed the rhythm of the song he was humming with one hand.
No, I must have missed something.
It was one of those indoor songs that we children weren't allowed to sing in the garden or on the street, and which the adults sang together behind closed doors with tense jaws. I sighed and felt my heart beat a little faster. I squinted until the vague green of the birch leaves blurred in the sunlight and breathed in the scent of the leather gloves, but then the car lost speed.
Suddenly, the road outside was full of carelessly parked cars and people who waved at us cheerfully until we parked the Lada at the edge of a flower meadow, filling a gap.
And maybe I understood a little, as Grandma climbed out of the car with unsteady legs and a tear in her eye, as the people here joyfully welcomed us right in the middle of the street, in the middle of nowhere, and I saw my mother take a deep breath with flushed cheeks.
Then the leather of her glove closed around my hand, and I naturally slipped my other hand into Grandma's, but not just me - as if by a secret signal, all these strangers held hands. The murmur of excited voices fell silent, and energy seemed to vibrate from person to person. For a moment, everything was still until a song from indoors started playing from somewhere.
We all joined in.

***

Sleeping Quechua is a quiet, gentle, and authentic suede scent. In the top note, the leather accord is wonderfully supported by a delightfully unruly angelica, which complements each other so perfectly that I can't help but wonder why this combination isn't constantly smelled. Additionally, there's a hint of pepper in the periphery that I wouldn't have noticed without looking at the notes list. I also don't smell any mate, but rather associate it with bright leaf green, which gradually weaves together with hay-like tobacco and a minimally indolic jasmine heartbeat. However, all these notes remain consistently on the periphery, forming only a restrained chorus around this simple, straightforward, and finely balanced leather accord, which I like a little more with each wear and which indeed remains stable all the way into the musky, subtly animalistic base.
As reduced and modern as it is, the scent reminds me in its structure and clear language a bit of "Cuir d'Ange | Hermès," while Sleeping Quechua is distinctly more robust with its green accents.
Conceptually, Aistis Mickevičius, the creative force behind FUMparFUM, actually wants to invite us to the Andes, but I always find myself mentally stuck in Mickevičius' Lithuanian homeland, specifically on August 23, 1989, at 7:00 PM, to be precise. On that day, when holding hands changed the world, approximately two million people formed an unbroken human chain across more than 600 kilometers from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius for a quarter of an hour, singing songs that the Russian occupying power had forbidden them, thus standing up for the independence of their countries with nonviolent resistance and a touch of civil disobedience. This legendary human chain went down in history as "the Baltic Way" and remains unparalleled as a peaceful moment celebrating freedom.
Unfortunately, I have never been to the Baltic States and only know one Lithuanian, my grandpa, who embodied so much of the stubborn gentleness that must have been necessary to unite all these people across national borders, social classes, ages, and genders in one idea. It is exactly this power of quiet tones, this unruly tenderness that I find in Sleeping Quechua, and I appreciate every spritz of this scent that strikes such a fine nerve with me.

Unfortunately, my grandpa died very young and did not experience the Baltic Way. He probably wouldn't have said much about it, just sitting on his bench in front of the house in Chiemgau with a smile and humming a song. But somehow, I like the thought that he would be happy because I now wear this gentle leather scent that comes from Lithuania and which I associate with him and this very special day.

Dear Misca, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to get to know this scent.