The bruised sweetness of black currant and plum skin. Dark fruit barely clinging to life, sharpened by lavender worn thin on lace cuffs. It’s a hush before the sermon, a veil lowered not in grief, but resolve. Violet leaf and almond rise next, cool and bitter-soft, like handwritten condolences and gloves stitched too tightly. There’s no warmth in the embrace, only memory: the kind pressed between pages and perfumed with longing. Beneath it, cedarwood and frankincense linger like the pews of a chapel long closed to joy. Mauveine, the world’s first synthetic dye, was accidentally discovered in 1856 by William Henry Perkin and quickly became a Victorian sensation. Its vivid purple hue symbolizing both industrial progress and the era’s deepening obsession with beauty tinged by artifice and decay.