FIRR- The Understorey

When you begin to explore natural perfumery, you become fascinated with that root of all essences, the botanicals. You start noticing them in cottage front gardens, in the bouquet on the counter, you catch notes on people’s skin that before were but a blurry shape in the sense register. For me my weekly walk through our town’s botanic gardens, my newborn bound to my chest in her carrier was a time of intimate boding and calm, of being receptive but inwardly facing. I started noticing the botanicals around me; the obvious first like rose and thyme, rosemary and lavender. Then the towering trees above; the atlas cedar and lemon scented gum. Then it dawned on me that the full spectrum of base notes through to top notes were present within this garden. Then, seeking the obscure, I found orris root, oakmoss and ambrette- what depth there could be! The shape of the perfume was materializing.

The feeling of walking in these gardens is of a space bound by the tall canopy above and drawing you downwards to rest upon the grass, to wander over bridges and through dank corners where there is haven from the heat and rewards of flowering shrubbery. Petrichor smells rise damp from the soil that has had its morning watering. To visit is to dwell in the understorey.

And so the scent that is now FIRR, was born of these meditative walks in my local ecosystem; a collective of native and northern hemisphere varieties in manicured and curated assembly. But what I really sought to capture was the feeling of stepping forth into wilderness, into the calm of the forest and drawing in its layers with deep breaths of pristine air.