Tacit is Aesop’s most restrained offering in a fragrance range that does not do loud. The name is deliberate: the word means understood without being stated, and that is more or less the brief the perfumer was given.
Yuzu and grapefruit open it - citrus that is dry rather than sweet, like the oil in lemon zest rather than the juice. Rosemary appears in the heart, which gives the whole thing a medicinal cleanness that keeps the woody base honest. The cedarwood and vetiver underneath are cool rather than warm, which means it sits close to skin without getting heavy.
It is a genuinely unisex fragrance in the technical sense, not the marketing sense. The longevity is moderate - three or four hours on skin before it becomes a skin scent, which for something this understated is about right.
The bottle is the familiar Aesop dark amber glass with the gold foil label. It looks correct on a shelf without trying to. At 50ml and £150 it is not inexpensive, but Aesop’s fragrances are made to a formulation standard that makes the price defensible. Tacit in particular has a precision to it that takes the category seriously without the gravity of a niche house.