Fathom V

This was an unexpected love! I bought the Hell or High Water discovery set (5x7.5ml) and this is the last one I got around to trying, mostly because I expected not to care too much for it. Flower shop, funeral lilies... not my thing. But there is so much more to this than that! First of all, that first spray- it gave me a vivid mental image of someone taking a fresh bouquet of flowers that's still in the wrap and passing it into my outstretched arms. I have heard people talk about the flowers "leaves and stems and all" on so many fragrances and then NOT had the same experience. But with this one it is so spot on it almost took my breath away. As interesting as that was, I would not want to smell like that all day, and happily this doesn't. As it settled in it retained both the green and the floral, with floral part thankfully kept well in check. There's something there that is lightly sweet and almost minty to me. And there is bitter green, earthiness, and salinity- all of it just such a lovely progression that keeps drawing my attention. One really interesting observation I had- I wore this while doing a task that required me to go back and forth between a warm humid room and a cool dry one. When I re-entered the warm humid room the lingering scent was light, lofty, and floral. Sweet, but not cloying- like stargazer lily with the syrupy thickness removed- like a powdered version of a lily- but without being "powdery", plus a little bit of chrysanthemum. And then, when I would enter the cool dry room the lingering scent that greeted me was damp and green and pleasingly bitter- almost a humid jungle type smell. It was as if the perfume had been deconstructed and half was sprayed in each room, and it was very different from the experience I was having within the scent bubble that was traveling with me where both sides were dancing together. I guess the point of sharing that is to say that this may leave a very different trail depending on the weather conditions- and what others smell might be quite different than what you perceive as the wearer- if that kind of thing matters to you. All in all I find this to be a fascinating creation. Truthfully, the whole Hell or High Water set is captivating. I will use all of them happily, but this one and Coeur De Noir will be the first two bottles to run dry.

28F. Got a 5mL sample of this from a decanter, and can say without a doubt this is the most uniquely atmospheric scent I've come across so far. Fathom V is so potent I could smell it through the vial when it arrived. The scent from the vial read to my nose as "green, briny, melancholy". First-time wearers should brace themselves for the opening on skin – the initial spray launches a wet soil bomb with a STRONG enveloping indolic note, like the crushed petals of aged white blooms on the verge of decay sinking into upturned earth after heavy rain. Not what I'd call pleasant, and certainly not what I'd typically want other people to smell on me – I almost scrubbed it at this point, but since I was spending the rest of the day alone at home I decided to stick with it to see how it would develop. And what an evocative experience I was rewarded with – almost cinematic, as another reviewer put it. This is a fragrance that transports you vividly through dark aquatic environs. Past the intensity of the opening, its subtleties take turns adding new elements to the scene. You're the POV character in a gothic adventure novel. There's the salt-encrusted wood planks of an old grey dock. There's the twisted green kelp tangled beneath the murky surface of a brackish lake. There's the dank mineralic air of a submarine cavern. I felt like I was in the world of Brett Helquist's illustrations in the A Series of Unfortunate Events books, specifically those around Lake Lachrymose and the Grim Grotto. Or as though I were traversing the foreboding undersea city of Rapture from Bioshock in a bathysphere. Only at the very end of several hours of wear does this trail off into passably safe green floral cologne territory, but if you wanted "safe" you wouldn't reach for this in the first place. Its genius lies in its atmospheric mastery, not its ability to please a crowd. In summary: As a perfume to wear in the conventional sense, Fathom V is challenging. Developing appreciation for it is not a passive undertaking, and I wouldn't advise anybody to blind buy this without getting a sample first. But as an olfactory experience for the imagination, it's deeply enthralling and one of a kind.

I had to run some work related errands today, so to the annoyance of everyone within five feet of me, I wore Fathom V by BeauFort London on my left wrist and Synthetic Jungle by Frédéric Malle on my right wrist. With Fathom V, the experience is raw and unsettling from the very beginning. On my pale Celtic complexion skin, the opening is sharp and almost overwhelming. It's a clash of bracing herbs, juniper, salt, and a moist soil accord that immediately conjures the image of decaying Easter lilies sinking into water on Antipascha Sunday. As it develops, there’s a strange tension between the delicate florals and the darker pull of moss, vetiver, and incense. The saltiness persists, binding the fragrance to an aquatic space that I would not describe as refreshing. It feels more like standing on a weathered dock in north Maine surrounded by brackish water and moist wood. Synthetic Jungle, by contrast, strikes me as a controlled and polished vision of greenness. Where Fathom V is chaotic and elemental, Synthetic Jungle feels sculpted and almost purposely architectural. The opening is crisp, dominated by a hyper-green lily-of-the-valley and Hyacinth [Bouquet not Bucket god rest her soul today], sharpened by basil fawlty [please someone wrap him in bubble wrap]. Its structure is clearer, the florals arranged in a way that brightens rather than suffocates. As it moves into the heart, the green continues, but the weight lightens and the patchouli planted in soft moist earth serves only to anchor the composition, never dragging it down. One leans toward chaos and moist earth while the other toward order and botanical brightness. In choosing between them I feel I am really choosing between confrontation and refinement. So why are these two my favourites after 27 years of collecting hundreds of bottles? That’s a beautiful question and one that cuts deep into how fragrance works emotionally, physically, and symbolically. There’s a melancholic beauty, like remembering a place I’ve never actually been, or I place I've been many times. When I catch a whiff radiating up my shirt from these two, I feel both soothed and unsettled, which is a balance I secretly crave.

The inspiration for the name of the perfume is Shakespeare's Ariel song from The Tempest, where the father lying five fathoms deep in the sea and his body is transformed into something rich and strange. And that is exactly what Fathom V is for me. The beginning reminds me of my grandmother. She picks chrysanthemums and lilies in her garden bed, the roots of which remain damp dirt. And it's as if I can smell the minty lubrication on her knuckles. The beginning is quite sharp, the aforementioned flowers along with the menthol attack you full force, after a while the damp earth joins in, the scent calms down a bit. And suddenly I'm in a cemetery, the autumn sun is nice and warm and I'm taking in the typically cemetery smells of flowers, fresh dirt, juniper bushes growing against the wall, and a whiff of incense from a nearby church is added. It puts me in a pleasantly melancholic mood. After an hour or two a saltiness emerges that transports me back to somewhere on the seashore. But not to the warm-smelling Mediterranean, rather somewhere on the cold Atlantic coast. A fresh wind blows in from the sea, mixing with the smell of a very old leafy, mostly oak, forest behind my back. The distinctive 'funeral' flowers still dominate, as if someone has dumped an old bouquet on the shore, some of the flowers are beginning to rot slightly at the stem ends. However, combined with woody notes, whiffs of spices and subtle incense, the fragrance moderates and smooths out, settling pleasantly close to the body. The projection is very pronounced to sharp at first, but soon enough it transitions into a very decent average. Longevity is excellent plus eight hours, even longer on clothes. What to say in conclusion? A great unusual fragrance in a combination of sea, earth and flowers blended from natural ingredients without oriental sweetness, which is a distinct advantage for me.

First of all - it’s just... a clear masterpiece, a perfection! Fathom V was my first from BeauFort London’s fragrances and, thanks to it, - I’m going to buy more from them. It’s a funeral home on the cold waters. It’s my personal chilly lullaby. I really use it when I go to sleep to calm myself down and to have needful dreams. Fathom V is sweet. I hate sweetness and try to avoid it as hard as I can. But here... It’s THAT kind of bold masculine sweetness. It’s not vulgar in any possible way. I smell pure chrysanthemums. This fragrance is like a painting of pale chrysanthemums swaying on the waves of the sea. The water is deep and dark phthalo. Diving into this scenescape, I can even hear how almost chill water washes the gross wooden ship. I was told to try this fragrance as it reminded one user of Dracula’s trip to London. And it’s exactly that picture! Tho it’s a Netflix’s Dracula’s vibe. It’s clear and pure. And gloomy. It’s an end of the night painting, early predawn scenescape. You can FEEL that flowers over the water, you can almost hear that water! Also you can find here a bit oily soil notes. It sounds like if someone accidentally strewed some soil on the ship’s deck and then the rain wet it down, mixing its flavour with fresh-oiled wood. Lilies are certainly there, too, but as far shade. Fathom V is really about cold water and chrysanthemums. The odour is strong, but close-to-skin. I find it kind of a really intimate for my personal usages. It doesn’t last for too long, ~6-8 hours. I’m not disappointed as I don’t use it outside of my private places, tho. I sadly can notice some feminine vibes here, but it’s for sure a mostly masculine perfume anyway. I’m really enjoying it every night and even not trying to mix with any others (even with my certain Zombie for Him by Demeter!). I think I’ve found a scent of paradise...