Purrfume

Blog

  • Letter from the Master Perfumer: On Catnip, and Restraint

    Dear friends, I am sometimes asked why Purrfume does not use catnip in any of its compositions. The answer is restraint. Catnip is the loudest note in the pantry. It enters a room and refuses to leave, demanding attention, and then collapsing on the floor in a state of joyful wreckage. A great perfume does not collapse. It lingers, and it leaves you wanting.

    That said, I confess that on a quiet Sunday last month I did work on a small formula, in a locked cabinet, using a single leaf. I will not describe the results. I will say only that the laboratory was rather damp afterwards, that Céleste was found asleep in the sink, and that the formula has been destroyed. Mostly. Yours in discretion, Aurelien Mewlet.

  • Layering: A Rule Book Written in Fur

    Layering is the art of wearing more than one fragrance at a time, and it requires nerve. As a rule, begin with the heaviest scent, apply it to the chest, and add a lighter scent at the throat. Warm Laptop beneath Sunbeam Absolute is a combination of rare comfort, like a duvet that has been told a secret. Tuna Dusk beneath anything will, in all likelihood, win.

    There are, however, prohibited pairings. Fresh Litter Noir with Cardboard at Dawn produces what our perfumers call “a basement,” and is not recommended for dinners. Forbidden Counter with anything else is considered an act of provocation. As Céleste puts it, in her single syllable: “No.” We have followed her advice in the matter, and in all others, for eleven years.

  • The Atelier Opens Its Doors, but Only Slightly

    It is with great ceremony, and some reluctance, that we announce the opening of the Purrfume Atelier on Silk Street. The Atelier is a small, hushed space with a single chaise, forty seven bottles and a door that sticks. Visitors are received by appointment only, and appointments are given at the discretion of the house, which is to say, the cat on the chaise.

    Here you may commission a bespoke fragrance, composed over six weeks from your own particular notes: the corner of your sofa, the dust of your favourite hall, the lingering warmth where your human last sat. Prices begin at $1,400. A consultation costs $60, and includes tea, a stern look, and an assessment of your general aura. Please arrive freshly unscented. Please arrive on time. Please do not touch the chaise.

  • Cardboard at Dawn: A Meditation on Corrugation

    Corrugated board, at six in the morning, has a smell unlike any other. It is dry, faintly sweet, a little papery, with an undertone of the warehouse where it was born and the long journey in a van that followed. To most it is packaging. To us, it is a cathedral. Cardboard at Dawn, our Eau de Toilette at $95, captures the exact moment a delivery is opened and the contents removed, leaving the box, empty and entirely yours.

    Notes of fresh pulp, tape adhesive, a flicker of vetiver, and a trace of the person who just walked away. Wear it when you wish to be low, square and sheltered. Pair it with silence, a patch of floor, and a quiet conviction that you are the true recipient. The best things come in boxes. The best thing is the box.

  • Perfume and the Whisker

    Many ask whether fragrance interferes with the whisker. We are glad to say that it need not. A whisker is a sensitive instrument, but it is also, in its way, a vanity, and a lightly scented whisker, treated with a single drop of our Whisker Veil, tells the world that you are a person of refinement who has thoughts about air.

    We recommend applying Whisker Veil with the pad of the paw, from root to tip, no more than once a day. Avoid the nose. The nose is a delicate thing and does not need our help. A well scented cat will move through a room as a thought moves through a mind, noticed, a little puzzling, and rather hard to place. At $38 for 10 ml, it is a modest indulgence for an immodest face.

  • The Bottle: Hand Blown, Hand Knocked, Hand Replaced

    Each Purrfume flacon is hand blown by a master glassmaker, Ignatius Cole, in a kiln that has been running since 1962. The glass is thick, faceted and weighted at the base, so that when a cat knocks it from a shelf, as one inevitably will, it bounces. We have tested this seventy three times. It broke on the seventy fourth, but we consider that an outlier.

    The stopper is made of brushed brass, shaped like a mouse’s head, and designed to be removed with a paw. The box is lined in grey silk, and fastens with a ribbon that is, in our considered opinion, the ideal length for batting. Each bottle ships in a protective sleeve, a tissue wrap, and a small card reading, “Please do not push this off anything.” They will.

  • Sourcing Tuna: An Expedition to the Quay

    To make Tuna Dusk, one must first find the hour. Our team travelled to Gull Quay at five on a grey morning, where a fisherman named Old Bartholomew gutted a bluefin with the grace of a concert pianist. We took with us glass jars, a thermometer, and Céleste on a lead, which she resented.

    The scent we wanted is not the fish itself but the second after it, when the knife is wiped, the gulls have gone quiet, and the light turns the sea the colour of a pewter spoon. We captured it in a jar, which Céleste sniffed, and then sat upon. Tuna Dusk Extrait, at $240 for 30 ml, is the result. It has hints of salt, steel, and the profound loneliness of a cat who has finished the tin.

  • Top Notes, Heart Notes, Base Notes and the Fourth We Do Not Discuss

    The classical pyramid of perfumery has three tiers. The top notes are the first impression: brisk, bright, and gone within minutes. The heart notes follow, the true character of the work, lasting several hours. The base notes, last, are the deep and lingering undertone, the part that clings to a cushion long after you have left it.

    At Purrfume, we recognise a fourth tier, the Hiss. It occurs about forty minutes into wear, when the composition suddenly asserts that it wishes to be left alone. The Hiss is not a fault. It is a signature. Customers who find that their fragrance has started to dislike them should not be alarmed, but may wish to apply it from a distance, and then withdraw, quietly, as one does from an opinion.

  • A Nose Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Meet Céleste Whiskerton

    Every great house has a nose, and ours is Céleste Whiskerton, a lilac point Birman of unimpeachable sensitivity. Céleste can identify 3,400 scents with her eyes closed, and has been known to detect a fish skin through a sealed envelope, a freezer door and a mild argument. She trained for nine years at the Academy of Nasal Arts, in a town we will not name.

    She works, as the great ones do, from a velvet cushion in the laboratory, from which she issues verdicts in a single syllable. “Yes.” “No.” “Hmm.” Hmm is the most feared. It signals that a formula is competent and therefore beneath her. Visitors are asked to speak softly and to leave their lunch at the door. She will know.

  • Introducing Warm Laptop: The Scent of Being Needed

    There are scents that announce themselves, and scents that merely arrive. Warm Laptop belongs to the second family. It opens with a bright accord of brushed aluminium and ozone, as if a fan has just woken in another room, then settles into a heart of toasted crumb, the faintest trace of someone’s lap, and a long, drowsy drydown of cooling plastic. It is the smell of being needed, and then ignored, and then needed again.

    Our Master Perfumer, Aurelien Mewlet, spent fourteen months composing it, most of them in a chair he was told to leave. The 50 ml flacon is $185. We recommend wearing it on the pulse points, the keyboard, and any document of consequence. It lasts approximately eleven hours, or until the lid closes.