How Does A Tattoo Smell? The Unisex Fragrance ATRAMENTAL By Room 1015 Created A Scent, “Inspired By The Tattoo Experience With Notes of Leather And Ink”
By Sidra Lackey
"The idea behind ATRAMENTAL was to create a perfume inspired by the tattoo experience with notes of leather and ink. A fragrance with a raw feel: Castoreum and smoked leather notes that remind the damaged skin, metallic notes as a reference to blood and notes of ink together with fresh and clean bergamot. So addictive…just like tattoos,” says Michael Partouche aka Dr. Mike, the founder and creative director of ATRAMENTAL behind the inspiration of the tattoo smelling fragrance. Room 1015 creates scents of nostalgic freedom, according to its website.
“Your tattoos tell your story, your dreams and your protests… Your skin is clean, but not blank. Eau de Cologne does not erase black water. In a strum, BERGAMOT succumbs to BLACK PEPPER. CISTUS excites the top notes. CARDAMOM and an AQUEOUS NOTE float away and indelible ink warms the skin with SAFFRON notes that stay. RESINS and SUDERAL bleed over the heart. CASTOREUM structures the skeleton, deeply imprinting it with its animal fascination. A tribal scent, a mental decal. Tattooing is an ancient practice that originally signed the membership of a tribal, religious group or was used to indelibly mark slaves and prisoners. In the 19th century, the convicts called “Bagnards” in France showed ink stigma very meaningful, making their bodies a veritable identity card. Even though it has now become a lifestyle, tattoos remain very personal and tell the story of someone by connecting to a memory. This precious moment of the past becomes extended to lifetime thanks to ink. ATRAMENTAL is an unusual fragrance that evokes the unique smell of tattooed skin: ink and leather,” Dr. Mike explains in depth on his unique tattoo scented fragrance.
The perfumers of ATRAMENTAL are Anne-Sophie Behaghel and Amelie Bourgeois. Fragrantica, an online, “encyclopedia of perfumes, a perfume magazine, and a community of perfume lovers,” describes ATRAMENTAL by Room 1015 as an “Aromatic Spicy” fragrance for women and men and says it was launched originally in 2015. According to Ministry of Scent, a fragrance website that, “presents artistic fragrances by independent perfumers and brands from far and wide”: “A Limited Edition 2022 version of Atramental is now available. Room 1015 teamed up with artist, tattooer and creative director Maxime Plescia-Buchi, founder of Sang Bleu studios, to bring their signature geometric style to the bottle presentation.”
Lauren Petrie aka “treacle tatts” a popular YouTube tattoo content creator with 152k subscribers known for her “tattoo enthusiasts reacts” videos, recently purchased ATRAMENTAL and reviewed it. Her reaction was a delight and her enthusiastic thoughts were, “OMG! I’m not joking! That smells like a tattoo studio! I am dead f**king serious! I actually like it. It is definitely more of a masculine smell, definitely not floral or light or airy. I think I like it because it does smell like green soap, leather, old wooden floors. You know if you’ve ever been to a very old school traditional tattoo studio. It truly does smell like a tattoo studio. Oh I wish you could smell this! The only thing I will say is I thought it was going to be incredibly strong but now that it’s settling into my skin it’s not as heavy as I thought it would be.”
After ATRAMENTAL tapered off, treacle tatts sprayed the scent again and said, “There it is again. Ah! That beautiful smell. I like it. I just wish the top notes would stay around a lot longer because it does dry down to that sort of leathery smell pretty quickly. It does smell like a tattoo studio, like an old school one, like a hint of a library as well. You know it’s kinda musty, smoky, like a book smell with a hint of green soap, a lot of leather. As a scent person it gets my approval. I was expecting the worst and it’s not. Final thoughts, it’s good!”
Treacle tatts gave ATRAMENTAL a 6.5 out of 10 giving her reason: “That green soap smell is there straight away but it dies down pretty quickly. And you’re left with just leather and a smoky vibe. Which is nice. I would imagine it would make actually a great gift for someone that likes perfume and the smell of tattoo studios. It’s a good mashup, you know.” She also noted that if her male partner were to wear ATRAMENTAL she would say, “Oh hi, you smell great!”
ATRAMENTAL by Room 1015 seems like it would be great to at least catch a whiff of to see if it really does smell like getting a tattoo. Tattoo collectors, would you want to smell like a fresh tattoo daily? Would you buy / wear this fragrance? Tattoo artists, even though you’re around the smell of actual tattoos often, would you still buy / wear a fragrance that smells like the process of tattooing someone?