Signature

Aedes de Venustas

Aedes de Venustas 2012

I feel like if you are going to make a signature fragrance for your brand, then you are likely going to choose notes that are universally loved, you’re going to make something everyone can agree upon, you’re going to make something safe, and probably a little basic. That’s…not what this is. It’s weird. It’s offbeat. It’s utterly unexpected. And it’s incredible. To be fair, it says right in the copy that it aimed to break from traditional perfume structures, but come on, how often have you heard something like that only to smell the same thing you’ve smelled a million times? What an oddball cast of characters: The tangy, fruity, acidic zest of rhubarb, dry woody incense, and bitter chypre accord with sweet vining notes of honeysuckle, sour green apple, and the sharp aromatic grassiness of tomato leaf. Hazelnut and vetiver are also listed in the notes and add a lovely, cozy warmth, an aspect that you'd think wouldn't belong here, but somehow it does. If you were going to make a perfume from olfactory extractions of the myriad, wildly differing Fraggle Rock personalities, their goodness and goofiness, their kindness and cleverness, and all their wild dreamy, delirious energy, you would end up with this funny, magical scent. If that's too much, imagining eau de muppet, you could also imagine wrapping yourself in a cozy, rumpled old cardigan smelling of nutty, custardy skin musk and stepping outside on an early summer evening to wriggle your toes in the fresh, warm dirt and watching a symphony of flowers in your garden closing themselves up, petal by petal, all of the shadows swallowing all of that green as the sky darkens and night falls.