Athenaeum

On the last day of summer vacation, you and your crush spend a sunny afternoon climbing apple trees and frolicking through fields of wildflowers. Your crush offers you a ride home, and you end up making out in the car until the sun sets. The next morning, on the first day of school, you’re studying and daydreaming in the library, and the smells of ink and paper and leather-bound books remind you of your crush’s salty skin and sweet sunscreen and waxy, camphoraceous lip balm, and then a crisp, autumnal breeze blows through an open window and brings you a whiff of those apple trees and wildflowers, and so many colorful memories of that afternoon (was it really yesterday and not a decade ago?) appear in your mind like hazy Kodachrome snapshots that fill you with longing, and now you feel that you finally understand the significance of the passage of time. Or maybe you’re just wearing Athenaeum, which beautifully captures a very specific flavor of nostalgia. This is my signature scent. I used up my 2 mL sample within a week and immediately ordered a full bottle, and I got teary-eyed as soon as I took off the cap. Athenaeum isn’t loud or flashy or conventionally “pretty”; it’s nuanced and multilayered, and it continues evolving on my skin throughout the day. It may not appeal to everyone, but I think it could work well for anyone, on any occasion, in any setting. And for this quiet, sensitive, bookish boy, it’s perfection. Bravo, Euan McCall.

I didn't realise this beautiful perfume has only just one review here! So I will share my impressions after I had it few months. First of all I would class it as green chypre. This perfume makes me feel like I am walking barefoot with my hair loose through the apple orchard in early September: I can smell grass disturbed with my steps, honeycombs, and lavender, live and entwined these aromas are so vivid, it's like a door into a magic world. There is nothing artificial about it, everything feels real and natural. I rub some grass between my fingers and breathe that high cool blue sky in. Then I pick up an apple, red, with many wrinkles, rub it against my dress and sink my teeth in it, or maybe it's not an apple? It's so drunk, it can well be a wine! Sweet and tarty, it's perfectly balanced. It was love at first sniff, and even few months later I've not cooled down to it: Athenaeum touches my heart every time I smell it. Edit: I found a crazy similarity with 24 Faubourg vintage extrait... They've got a lot in common: hyacinths, neroli/orange blossom, oak/oakmoss.. Fascinating discovery!

This conjures a scene of an ancient architectural ruin in a fantasy setting, the builders memories long faded in time. The scent of overgrowth, trees and weeds mixes with rubble and ruins, the sun's heat bearing down on the old stonework as the scent of wood, stone and dirt fills your nostrils. Green and vibrant at first - almost echoing the excitement of the discovery - fills the senses. You traverse the strange landscape, the scent leading into more soil and brick. Jorum's Atheneaum is a narrative, as the scent leads into the middle and base notes so too does the story. What will you find at the end of the scent journey? What mysteries await in the ancient scripts and shapes you see before you in the ruins? The air becomes still, as you continue to ponder and daydream about an ancient civilisation and the scent of oak, stone, and balsam sit in the air. A transformative experiance, one that each spray will leave you yearning for more.

Athenaeum, is a beautiful lavender, and beeswax fragrance with leather, hay, oak, and mineral tones from ink that comes off almost similar to the smell of pebbles or rocks found while hiking. The lavender gives a slight soapiness to the composition that tames the raw animalic facets of the leather and beeswax. This perfume is the sweet but not in the usual gourmand fashion. The sweetness smells of things made by little creatures like bees, or worms. The dark soil being worked by the worms, and insects eating what has died. Taking the decay of death and turning it into the sweet aroma of new life. I really like this one along with Elegy. This is a house to watch for interesting, unique creations that smell connected to nature but they don't smell like a herbal health food store. The perfumes are just that real perfumes. There is a Bohemian style here that I adore but executed with a sophisticated flair. Bravo.

This is a wonderful fragrance I had the chance to smell and pick up in Scotland at Jorum’s boutique. Euan McCall is passionate about what he does and it shows in his product. The opening is a beautiful forest, Narnian, oddly enough I’m greeted most directly by a handshake between patchouli and honey brought to life by citrus. Drying down, ink and oak supported by leather bring a mature “library” nostalgia to this story, almost like you’re reading the story of that place we were in the opening of the fragrance from the point of view of a fond author. If you’re looking for something unique, the essence of my experience in Scotland, Jorum Athenaeum. It’s a spring wear for sure, short sleeves, out on a day date. But that moment it fits perfectly. Overall: 8.5/10 Longevity: 6-7 hours Silage: further than arms length for four hours Season:spring/early summer Wonderful work