Casablanca

Fig leaf and fig flesh do not smell alike.

Fig leaf is green and faintly bitter. The flesh of ripe fig, further in, is neither, and orris turns it powdery where the two meet. Davana runs honeyed underneath the bitterness and softens it. At the far end galbanum goes sharp and nearly medicinal against white cedar, and that edge stops it going soft.

Fig groves in the Atlas foothills, riad gardens wet with dew and not yet warm, sun-warmed by the time the day catches up. Serene is the register. It blooms rather than sweetens, and never leaves the green behind.

La Boticá is a fragrance house rooted in Afro-Dominican heritage, working out of a Long Island City atelier where a small team handcrafts every release. Dawn Marie West founded it and composes the work, self-taught, arriving at fine fragrance after fifteen years in the arts, with a background as an art director and fine art photographer. Indigenous Dominican materials are the foundation: amyris, wild orange and cacao butter from the island, alongside palo santo gathered in Ecuador.

Seven eau de parfums, hand-poured candles, botanical body oils and incense make up the range, produced in small batches and in limited editions, and built to be layered. The fragrances are vegan and cruelty free, blended on USDA organic sugarcane alcohol and housed in Spanish glass from a Costa Brava maker, made with recycled content. A percentage of profits goes to The Dream Project, which runs education programs across twenty-seven Dominican communities.