Kyoto

It all began with an idea of a perfume to accompany me on my first visit to Kyoto. I imagined the scents that might float through the serene gardens of Kyoto temples, and began composing a fragrance that blended those imagined aromas with essences close to my heart.

Wearing that scent in Kyoto felt surprisingly right, as if the composition already belonged in that landscape. But during my stay, I also encountered something unexpected: local, deeply evocative materials like hinoki, osmanthus, kuromoji, and others. Their presence added a new dimension to what I thought this fragrance could be.

When I returned home, I reworked the composition using these unique Japanese essences, seeking to recreate the sensations I tasted in Kyoto's gardens, the feeling of encountering invisible beauty, a sense of timelessness, hidden spaces, long-lost freedom, and ancient precision expressed in every detail. With these new essences, the blend came closer to capturing the soul of the quietly profound Kyoto’s gardens.

One of the most special discoveries was an artisan-distilled sandalwood oil, drawn from a single tree that had grown for over a century in a Zen garden in southern Japan. The scent was instantly grounding - an essence that held the soul of the place. I also sourced cedarwood from trees native to the Kyoto region, further anchoring the fragrance in its true landscape.

The most challenging ingredient to find was osmanthus flowers extract. I searched endlessly for a version that truly captured the sweet, airy scent I remembered from walking through Kyoto’s streets. I finally found it: a rare CO₂ extract of osmanthus flowers - free from woody twigs and spicy leaves, wonderfully delicate and true.

Now, this perfume stands as an olfactory homage to the magic of my beloved gardens of Kyoto. Created with love from my favorite spaces in Japan, for you to wear, wander and wonder.