£120.00
Made by Stora Skuggan (Stockholm, Sweden)
Perfumer: Olle Hemmendorf
Eau de parfum made by hand in Stockholm.
Notes—
Top: Tussilago, Sunscreen
Heart: Fig, Chamomile, Buttercup, Goldberry
Base: Musk, Hay
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“It appears that the loss of the scent of Monkeyflower was first noticed in Britain in 1909, when a well-known nurseryman asked: ‘Is there such a thing now as a common musk with the old musk perfume?’”
– THE LOST FRAGRANCE OF MUSK, letter published in the journal Nature, 1934
The Musk Monkeyflower (so renowned for its vibrant scent that it was simply referred to as The Common Musk) was imported to Europe from the American west coast, where the sun-yellow flowers, perched on fuzzy, sticky stalks, can be found in meadows or along old dirt roads.
The Monkeyflower was a smash hit in Victorian England, thanks to its rich musk smell. Over nearly a century, it spread from the botanical aristocracy to London street hawkers and countryside cottage windows. But at the turn of the twentieth century, the flower suddenly lost its scent—not just in domesticated plants, but in wild specimens as well. Botanists in North America reported that the uncultivated flowers had also lost their fragrance.
This puzzling mystery was the hottest topic among biology conspiracy theorists for decades, but no explanation was ever found. Eventually, the subject faded into obscurity, along with the flower’s popularity as a houseplant. By then, the flowers had spread into the wild and can sometimes still be found living a quiet life in parts of Europe and New Zealand—perhaps just biding their time before returning to the olfactory stage.
ALCOHOL DENAT., PARFUM, AQUA, HYDROXYCITRONELLAL, ALPHA-ISOMETHYL IONONE, LIMONENE, BENZYL SALICYLATE, LINALOOL, CITRONELLOL, EUGENOL, GERANIOL
Stora Skuggan
Stora Skuggan was founded by a group of five multidisciplinary artists – Anna Barkne, Tomas Hempel, Olle Hemmendorff, Jonas Nordin & Martin Nicolausson – who met in 2005 whilst studying together at Stockholm’s Beckmans College of Design. The five embarked on a journey of olfactive exploration, learning and experimenting over years, before officially launching in 2015 with their first fragrance: Fantôme de Maules.
Swedish for “the big shadow”, Stora Skuggan meticulously handcraft gender-fluid niche fragrances, each imbued with an enchanting narrative. Combining the essence of nature with the refinement of Scandinavian design, their six fragrances evoke an ethereal escapism. Drawing from the eclectic backgrounds of its founders, Stora Skuggan craft fragrances that seamlessly interweave cultural influence and theoretical underpinnings with an air of mystique – we encounter an intersection of Freudian analysis, Indian folklore, an nods to times long gone.
“We have not followed the traditional way to launch a perfume line by hiring established perfumers and design agencies and so on. We have done everything ourselves; every little detail has been formed by our hands.”
-Tomas Hempel, co-founder
In 2018, the label’s second launch, Silphium – built around an extinct plant used in Ancient Greece and Rome – was named a finalist in the Art and Olfaction Awards. Mistpouffer launched in 2019 after four years in development. The scent attempts to bottle the mystical, unexplained sounds sometimes heard along bodies of water, often likened to a cannon or sonic boom.
The fragrances are presented in sleek glass bottles with stoneware orb lids. Influenced by Scandinavian modernist design, the bottles simultaneously present the artistic divergence of ideas within the fragrance, whilst doubling up as a beautiful object.
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