For centuries, a thurible with incense has provided a spiritual balm for congregants, as well as for those for whom the scent of fragrant smoke is as hypnotic as it is elevating. Long associated with religious practices, the burning of incense has also been an aesthetic practice, evoking, for many, a sense of serenity.
With a motto Lux in Tenebris (Latin for “light in darkness”), Inspiritu seeks to provide clarity amidst modernity’s cacophony. Founded in 2014 by global brand consultant Olivia Mariotti and Italian actor and television star Luca Calvani, Inspiritu offers a line of luxury fragrances and candles that seek to reconnect with that “place where we can create…[and] truly listen.”
Long-time friends and business partners Olivia Mariotti and Luca Calvani of Inspiritu ©MRNY
Long-time friends and business partners, Mariotti and Calvani were initially inspired by the spirituality of meditation, which frequently includes the ritual lighting of a candle. The fragrances for Inspiritu’s meditative candles and eaux de parfums correspond to the four Platonic cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
Employing the Latin word for “light,” the fifth fragrance Lux is the “fil rouge” of the Inspiritu line—or the guiding narrative arc for the entire fragrance collection. By utilizing the olfactive power of incense, the fragrance evokes centuries-old purification rites and spiritual cleansing.
©Inspiritu
While the essence of incense flows through the four other fragrances as a smoldering shadow, Lux is offered as the zenith of incense’s ability to inspire the “unifying power of the universal consciousness.”
That’s a heady objective for a fragrance—yet the history of incense and its adherents suggests the strength of incense as an aromatic aid on the path to enlightenment.
©MRNY
In keeping with the worldwide embrace of incense, Inspiritu’s Lux is redolent of a global potpourri of warm woods with cedar and sandalwood from China and Caledonia. Haitian vetiver provides Lux’s deep smoky resinous notes alongside a hint of vanilla from Madagascar. Rosemary from Tunisia commingles with the sharpness of pine from a resin of elemi, about which Pliny wrote of tears from an Arabian olive tree.
On the skin, Lux lingers like a benediction after a devotional practice. For hours, the scent hovers with a kind of warm embrace, recalling a calm long associated with incense.
©Inspiritu
A veteran of Hollywood films and television series including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., As the World Turns, Sex and the City, and the Italian version of Celebrity Survivor, Calvani has spent his life in front of the camera. For Calvani, the concept of light (or “lux”) has been a through thread for his life as a model and screen star. With Inspiritu and Lux, he and Mariotti sought to create an olfactory atmosphere that suggests light as a unifying theme.
Available at Barneys New York, the Inspiritu eau de parfum collection is presented in elegant etched glass bottles with the Inspiritu monogram alongside allegorical motifs. A molded bronze stopper seals each bottle, which is housed in an origami box that opens like a lotus.
Inspiritu’s 14-ounce candles, also available at Barneys New York, are poured in handblown glass vessels by Cristalleria Arzanese. With a burn time of 100 hours, the candles are branded with the Inspiritu monogram alongside floral engravings inspired by Tuscan artisans.
