It started out as a party at dusk.
That hour when the light has shifted and conversation has moved past the part where performance is centerstage. Wine, mead, and the kind of music that pulls you, makes your shoulders a little loose, has you doing the seated shimmy unconsciously. A feeling existed that told the story of tinkling laughter, a bass line you felt in your bones, pulling you to the dance floor. A little wicked, a little saucy, a little feral.
I called it Room 19, and it wasn't ready.
The composition didn't work as I had imagined - dark red fruits, sparkling florals, the night air blending with the wines, smoke, the animalic blend of skin and leather. It was too much and not enough. So I took a break, and came back a couple of months later with fresh eyes and nose.
Room 19 was meant to be the darker counterpart to Salted - a citrus-salt-solar fragrance with notes of toasted coconut and ozone-touched air. An afternoon on the ocean, with an air of joie de vivre. Light, slightly musky, incredibly layered.
Salted had to dance alone.
When I came back to it, the idea had evolved. Less garden party, more speakeasy. If the speakeasy smelled like smoke and leather and dark fruits, with something almost edible trailing behind - warm praline and tonka folding into oud, incense, and patchouli.
Many weeks of maceration later, Smoked Cherry finally hit the stage.
It is the first chapter of The Quarterly - a quarterly drop of fragrances that’s inspired by the way I see the world and the stories that unfold from my observation of it and the people in it.
Smoked Cherry exists across home fragrance - tapers and candles, as well on the skin - Re•Set and soap bars. One fragrance, different experiences.
It might yet dance with sparking florals. You’ll know when the page turns.