Notes from Seattle: Perfumery
featuring Nose of Gatsby and Fischersund
While Seattle doesn’t have a big specialty niche fragrance shop a la Ministry of Scent, ZGO, the Marie Marie, Scent Bar, Stele, Scent Room, etc., there are a few notable things to check out there if you are in the area.
Originally, I planned on visiting Filigree & Shadow, but after learning they are selling through their inventory and moving to Belgium to rebuild from the ground up with new formulas, I decided it was best I not fall in love with things on their way out for good and decided to skip. Sometimes it’s really just bad timing!
However, I was able to pick up a few things in other places, so will go over them here along with some general thoughts.
Fischersund at the National Nordic Museum
Last year through early 2025, Fischersund collaborated with the National Nordic Museum to create an exhibition called ‘Faux Flora,’ a multisensory experience designed around an invented species, including recorded music from Jonsi, beautiful visuals, and a series of conceptual fragrances made that illustrate various stages of the lifecycle of a plant. While I did not get to see that exhibition while it was ongoing, the museum as a whole was quite interesting (though on the smaller side).
Their gift shop features an entire shelf dedicated to Fischersund and is only a handful of physical locations in the country where their fragrances can be found in person. Everything from their fragrances, to bandanas, to incense, candles, soap, samples, and more. I currently own No. 101, and there are a few others I am interested in as well.
If you’d like to support the museum by purchasing Fischersund items from them, click here. Otherwise, you can find these items on Fischersund’s official website.
My mission here was to grab one of the Faux Flora sets, which included 5x 8ml scents that were designed for the exhibition. The entire concept of this was quite interesting to me, so I’ve shared the summary of the project below:
Faux Flora: A scent journey in five parts
Fischersund Perfumery and Art Collective unveils five new efflorescent fragrances called Faux Flora. Enter a world of conceptualized botany that explores the intersection of what is natural versus synthetic.
Faux Flora is a sensorial display of a plant’s life cycle displayed through human milestones. The plant life cycle—germination, growth, flowering, seed formation, and seed dispersal—is thus superimposed on the life cycle of a human—birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and death. Faux Flora springs from universal experiences, creating mythical flowers that are otherworldly yet familiar.
I’m a sucker for high concept perfumery, so this is a set I’ve been very curious about for some time and picked one up here. The presentation of the box is quite beautiful, with a nicely designed slip over the box, featuring imagery from the exhibition. Removing the slip, the black box is embossed with the exhibition logo and opens to reveal beautiful laminated cards with exhibition images on one side and the name/concept of each fragrance as well as a poem in both Icelandic and English.
The fragrances are all quite interesting, for the most part capturing scents of nonexistant flowers, while also capturing a mood that fits in with the overall theme.
Faux Flora No. 1 - This fragrance is supposed to represent germination or birth. The first leaf. A first breath. The scent profile leans creamy, milky, powdery white floral with a synthetic edge. For the most part, I do see the vision here, but it takes little time for the synthetics to make me noseblind. To me, it makes me think of a sort of sterilized hospital mixed with a sort of lactonic woody background that almost smells a little sick.
Faux Flora No. 2 - This fragrance is supposed to represent growth and childhood. It is delightfully odd with a mix of green (tomato leaf, petitgrain, bell pepper, vetiver), sweet/citrusy (lemon peel, raspberry, licorice), along with cedar, musk, and lavender. I probably would not wear this, but I really enjoy smelling it. It’s sweet, green, plasticky, and grassy. The smell of sticky melted raspberry ice pops mixed with grass stains and fresh bandaid. Childhood nostalgia bottled. This strange combination comes with a poem that is so on the nose with how it makes me feel that I had to copy it here:
Climb trees brain freeze paint brush sugar rush throw ball free fall hide bed build shed grass stains airplanes flat tire start fire fall out sing loud bruises scratches band-aid patches giving steals training wheels orange peels automobiles running falling landing calling acting dying dancing crying drowning flying breathing shouting laughing
Crowns bloom raised skyward
Songbirds whistle above
Innocent eyes observe
every microscopic flutter
Faux Flora No. 3 - This fragrance is supposed to represent flowering and adolescence. Opening with a blast of fresh pink pepper and bergamot, a synthetic sticky-sweet leather pushes through, with a bit of plastic & lipsticky notes adding a weird edge. The weird chemical sweetness here almost makes gag, yet I find this fascinating. A excerpt from the scent poem helps illustrate what this is going for:
Wearing your favorite dress
Make up lipstick leather shoes
Cigarette smoke sweet perfumes
Tears fall in friends arms
like spilled drinks
Laughing
Shouting
into the night
we go
Faux Flora No. 4 - This fragrance is supposed to represent seed germination and adulthood. This is mainly a nicely blended conifer-heavy amber/incense blend and is probably the least experimental of the set (but also quite wearable). Incense and resins are quite meditative to me, which is fitting for a fragrance that meditates on and confronts a harsh reality of adulthood:
Yesterday evanesces
Today another day
How many days do I get?
Faux Flora No. 5 - Last, but not least, this fragrance is supposed to represent death. This one is quite visceral — replicating the smell of decaying plant matter in damp black soil; burnt ash; fungi, and the cycle of decomposition and rebirth. If I were to have to choose a scent that represents an old crypt, this would be it.
Overall, going through all of these, smelling, reading the scent poems, and reflecting on the conceptual package offered with this set was such a wonderful experience and really highlighted what fragrance can be when treated as an artistic medium in combination with stunning audio-visual productions.
Nose of Gatsby at Pike Place Market
Due to some excellent timing, I had the opportunity to stop by Pike Place Market and visit Gatsby at their guest booth at the market on their final day. I had a wonderful time chatting with Gatsby for some time about their fragrances, history, fragrance in general, etc.
Gatsby is a self-taught perfumer and hobbyist who spent 14 years experimenting with making fragrances prior to the creation of their brand. The result is a solid line that has something for everyone, including multiple award-winning offerings. For more in-depth information about Gatsby, read this interview.
Unfortunately, arriving on the final day I was met with the discovery sets being out of stock. Since it would be a few months before a restock, I instead picked up three travel sprays and a few samples that I’ll recap here. To browse their website, click here.
Travel Trio:
I picked up the travel trio — 3x 10ml travel sprays — with the three that drew me in
Burning Piano - Smelling this on a test strip at the booth, the initial blast of smoked wood is potent, but quite nice. It mellows out with the dry down, with the smoke settling and a light touch of rose and leather coming through. A really nice fall/winter choice, especially for those who enjoy smoky scents a la T-rex, LiTA, etc. This was an Art and Olfaction Awards Honorable Mention in 2024.
Aura - This one hooked me immedaitely. It’s a soft woody scent with a focus on Guaiacwood. In the opening, there are definitely similarities with Gaiac 10 from Le Labo, but Aura ends up considerably more complex and with much better performance overall. Fans of soft, musky, woody scents will love this. Winner of the Best Woody fragrance in 2024 at the Golden Pineapple awards.
Mirage - As a fan of ambers, resins, spices, etc., this seemed like a winner to me. While normally I’m pretty avoidant of saffron when used in perfumery, in this one it is blended quite nicely. There is a burst of almost citrus in the opening from the frankincense, with saffron, plum, and a smooth suede in the heart and a landanum and vetiver base. I’d recommend this to fans of fragrances like L’air du desert Morocain or Ambre Sultan. Winner of Best Special Occasion Fragrance Award 2025 from AskMen.com.
Samples:
Superbloom - A spicy, lemony, floral bouquet of a fragrance featuring Rose, Jasmine, Neroli, Lavender, and Iris. The combination of citrus and rose in the opening is quite interesting and ends up feeling super fresh. As it dries down, it gets easier to pick out the individual floral notes including slightly indolic jasmine and a smooth lavender. For me, this can lean a little bathroom air freshener, however, with the lemon and lavender, especially with the indolic jasmine lending a bit of that ‘funk’ that is present in public restrooms. At the same time, it also smells like a fresh bouquet of flowers on the counter next to a bowl of lemons.
Bespoke - This may be my all-around winner from the house outside of Aura as it is incredible versatile. This is Gatsby’s twist on the fougere style, with bergamot and lavender being front and center with a nice sandalwood in the base. Inspired by bespoke tailor shops, steamed and pressed clothes, and clean linens. If all of my clothing and bedding smelled of this, I would be overjoyed. One of the best lavender fragrances I’ve smelled as I often find they lean a little too soapy. This is just gorgeous and any time I have worn the sample I’ve had a hard time not smelling myself. It’s on my to-buy list for a full bottle at some point, which will likely be sooner rather than later given the sample is already almost gone.
Triple Vanilla - A deep, nutty vanilla that leans a bit dry versus dense and sweet. The hazelnuts and waffle cone almost push this into a holiday yankee candle territory, but the lack of dense sweetness keep it from teetering over the edge. If sprayed cautiously and worn close to skin it can be quite nice. However, this one is very easy to overdo. I am not normally a gourmand person, but I woudn’t mind smelling this on anyone. My favorite vanilla is still Tihota, mostly due to it’s pure, straight vanilla approach, but this is one for lovers of Zoologist Chipmunk and/or Harvest Mouse, or Pineward’s Shire.
Tranquil - Grapefruit, orange blossom, and some green/tea notes make for a fresh, citrusy fragrance that is soft and accessible. This one is nicely blended and smells lovely, but it did come across a bit on the more generic side to me, lacking some of the inventiveness of some other offerings from the house. That being said, if you are a fan of fresh citrus scents but want something slightly more green and a tad more bitter, this is one to check out!
Naive - A soft, creamy, fig and black tea opens here — gorgeous — though this quickly fades a bit for me and a fairly strong rose note comes through, one that is even more prominent and persistent on fabrics. If you like fig, black tea, and rose, definitely give this one a try. It’s not for me though given the strong rose note.
Ultimately, my two favorite picks are probably Bespoke and Aura, with Burning Piano and Mirage rounding out a top 4 — at least from the ones I sampled. I did smell some of their other scents on display, including a few of the other gourmands + the newest to the lineup — Eros — that perfectly replicated that fuzzy peach/apricot smell that I’ve never smelled so accurately reproduced. While it is a bit too fruity/sweet for me, those looking for an accurate peach/apricot scent should absolutely give that a try.
Lastly, just wandering around Pike Place Market, it’s easy to get bombarded with scents from enormous floral booths to roasted nuts to spices and coffees and teas. While overwhelming at times, it is absolutely a ‘tourist trap’ worth spending time in.
I’ll close out with a really beautiful track from Blue Earth Sound, titled ‘Mariposa.’
‘Til next time!
Such a fan of the Faux Flora set. And I haven’t smelled Nose of Gatsby yet but Aura sounds like something I’d really like.
Next time you’re in town, visit Orcas Paley, Perfumerie Nasreen, Olfactory House (all three close to the market), and Immortal Perfumes (Ballard). I always like to rep my local ‘scene.’ Glad you found Nose of Gatsby.