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

Super impressed by this! Gives me a specific, familiar feeling of peace and connection to earth that I had as a day-dreamy, bookish kid. I feel like there is a memory on the tip of my brain related to this smell. As someone else said, this has a "natural" sweetness and manages to be green and airy, while also sticky, but also powdery. There's something in here that reminds me of a past Lush bubble bar I had. It also reminds me of working in the garden with my dad as a kid, mixing the compost pile of lawn clippings and smelling the combination of slowly self-baking moist grass and dry dirt. The ink note is strong to my nose, as is the beeswax. Who knew these two would be so compelling! I bought all four available Jorum Studio sample sets, this being one in the Selective Memory set. I've sprayed my wrist once with this and that's enough! I need a full bottle.

love it, enveloping floral without cloying sweetness. however, disappears quicker than a dream upon waking. i was so looking forward to being in edinburgh and visiting the jorum shop. i was not disappointed. i spent some time with the delightful shop assistant and sampled the entire line. anthenaeum captivated me. over the last two weeks, i have gone through half a bottle. in a few hours it disappears. i do not mean it fades to a skin scent but practically vanishes on me. it leaves behind faint traces that remind me of oliver's vetiverus. i ended up with 3 bottles, one each of carduus, phloem and this. there is a wonderful clean spicey quality but its performance makes another bottle unlikely. august 2022. almost finished the bottle. it has been nice. but the overall impression is one of immaturity or at least pleasant lack of seriousness. mildly complex.

This is an interesting one for sure. It opens with a lovely beeswax note that's powdery with a natural sweetness to it. The fennel note is interesting here too, as it's prominent but enjoyable, esp mixed with the lavender it creates an aromatic and herbal aroma. As the scent develops you get a dry and earthy hay with a bit of floral touch thanks to the neroli, with remnants of that aromatic smell from the opening. This scent changes pretty drastically as time goes on as you get a strong ink note and dry woods.The ink reads like a ballpoint pen's ink specifically, it's odd but it works mixed with the woods in the base and an earthy patchouli in the background. This smells like an old book with fresh prose written in its pages hidden away in a library with oak walls and covered by tall trees.

After reading reviews to me it sounds like people are only reporting their first whiff of the scent. Because at the first few minutes on skin it does come across sort of damp and heavy, I'm giving that to the beeswax, oak, & leather. I do agree that the ink does give off a mineral tone through the perfume but after an hour this becomes a very warm springtime/summer scent for me. I get the hay and honey bringing the base with the uplifting notes of lavender and fennel. To me it settles in on my skin like an overpriced sunscreen vibe especially with the ink providing the mineralic properties you get in sunscreens. It reminds me of when I have my windows open after a spring cleaning and the farmers are bailing hay outside my window. Full bottle worthy to me 80/10.

lollipop in the dentist's waiting room. wood stain on church pews. bygone cicada days. hazy childhood, weary nostalgia, you can scarcely come to grips with it. the shape of absence is the taste of where dream turns to nightmare. i yearn immediately for a full bottle. the sample isnt enough, nor can i get enough of inhaling this scent. excellent, beautiful, dark but only to me. the memories it stirs up are very personal.

My first bottle from jorum studio and I'm pretty impressed. On first spray I get the fennel and apple and starts of masculine then as it dries down the neroli and hyacinth start in and get feminine, I wasn't sure at that point but it quickly hits the base and goes very masculine woody for me . I plan on sampling more of jorum studio but if their all this quality they'll definitely be worth buying again

I like my perfumes dusty, chalky, waxy, herbal, and BONE DRY. As soon as I smelled this I exclaimed "that's what I'm talking about" aloud like an NPC in a computer game. Mentholated chapstick, sweet dust, herbs hanging up to dry, wildflowers...incredible, if you're into that kind of thing. I'm glad I didn't read too many reviews before trying it out, as they might have frightened me away.

Dusty, waxy, honeyed petrichor. Sometimes it depicts the French calanques (immortelle, stones, pine, miel de provence, mediterranean sea), sometimes it reminds me of a a little dusty wooden house after the rain. I love it, it is very melancholic to me.

Trying from a sample I ordered, and it's very intriguing. Upon initial spray it had almost a clinical or medicinal quality that I can't quite put my finger on; not the sterile smell of a doctor's office, but... something. And not in a bad way, it just surprised me and I was curious trying to figure it out. Maybe it's the lavender interacting with other notes I'm less familiar with. I get what some people are saying about it having a sourness to it, but in my opinion it's not a gross sour; I wonder if that's why it's a bit clinical to me though. Now that it's dried down I'm mainly getting the hay note, and it became a lot more subtle and warm, but almost nonexistent. I'm curious to see if it will linger or fade even more, because if it fades then this unfortunately did not last on my skin hardly at all. Overall I think this is an interesting scent but not one I feel compelled to own a full bottle of, though I'm looking forward to using my sample and seeing if I discover anything new from this fragrance. Art I think would smell like Athenaeum: Gathering Herbs by Camille Pissarro

I’m not sure I know what I’m smelling; Athenaeum is “resiny”, possibly the ink and balsam notes are creating this effect. The overall scent is also like sweet tree sap, natural and complex. This also reminds me of an artist’s studio, the scent of turpentine and of paint drying in the air. I’ve been testing a lot of fragrance because I’m working my way through a heavenly niche box, and I was so excited to come across something from a house I’ve been curious about. Nothing I’ve smelled over the past 10 days compares, and for that I’m thankful. An enthusiastic like from me.

Tons of dusty leather in this for me, a little musty actually maybe that is the ink note. The wax is there, the sweet herbs are there, there is a bit of a floral aspect but its faint. A bit of an odd mix but it kind of works. Don't know how this happened exactly, maybe the ink again but I got a picture of old man Scrooge at night in candlelight writing in his ledger grumbling along, but he's got a cold and he blows his nose into a camphor filled hanky. Weird association to pop into my head but there we go.

Dry herbs floating over an airy lanolin. Dusty and cool. This perfume conjures the image of a sunny, breezy studio in a rural setting. Or perhaps a soap maker's shop. The walls are whitewashed and there is comfortable clutter. I imagine this would appeal to the crunchier among us--if maxi skirts and Tevas are your wardrobe staples, if the majority of your jewelry was purchased at small town galleries or Sunday farmer's markets, this scent would be a good addition to your collection.

Very interesting fragrance. I get mostly beeswax. In fact I feel like it’s very similar to the original Burt’s bees chapstick. Lightly mentholated, maybe that’s the ink. It definitely has a cold, waxy smell. I also get hay and my wife picked up in the fennel immediately. This will make you smell well rounded and intellectual. Overall 9/10. Unique and a great value, anyone could wear this.

On my skin, the opening of this perfume is a dead ringer for St. Ives Apricot Face Scrub. Medicinal lavender, lotion, waxy honey, slightly tart fruit and walnut shell powder. I really enjoy the dry down, which is a much tamer blend of creamy dried wood sap, hay, and grassy patchouli. But I just cannot get over that apricot scrub opening!

Complex and interesting, but is it a distinctive composition? You can really feel the counterpoint of ink and leather against something completely green — worth trying once more. But it probably wasn’t outstanding on the skin, especially after a while.

Athenaeum opens intensely sharp and green and hissy, with something almost like white blackboard chalk underneath. Then the chalk blends into a balmy beeswax-and-wildflowers meadow scent, with occasional hints of green apple. There’s something dark underneath – I get a hint of leather, but mostly it’s just a sense of shadow. In the far drydown we’re back in a pale, balmy place that’s hard to place. A little shady, a little green maybe, a little damp or watery, certainly a little “perfumey”. Quite mild and subtle throughout. This perfume is meant to be inspired by the smells of the National Library in Edinburgh, and there is a phase early on that smells papery or wood-pulpy, but I don’t exactly get “ink”. Athenaeum is odd and undefinable. If I had to fit it into existing perfume tropes I might say “green + leather”, but it’s not quite that either. An interesting effect, and rather pleasant, but ultimately not one that especially speaks to me.

You're writing a letter to your long-distance lover, sucking on your ballpoint pen as you find the words to say. You're climbing trees in an orchard, their branches drawing blood as they cut up your legs. You're feeding crab apples and hay to your father's horses as he holds you up in his arms, your head against his neck - freshly shaved and beaming. Athenaeum by Jorum Studio.

I just have a sample. A strange scent, honestly. I get no honey or apple, nothing sweet or fruity at all. Even the florals are hard for me to pick up on my skin. It smells like standing in the middle of a hay field, but there isn't any freshness to the hay per se, it smells a bit musty and dusty. I don't wholly dislike it, just not for me. Leans more masculine IMHO.

I like this but I don't love this at first and like it less as it dries down. It's a bit camphorous, with beeswax only in the top and to sweeten what would be herbal and bitter, and some hay that quickly turns more herbal like camphor mixed with tomato leaf mixed with oakmoss.

herbal remedies, sweet fennel and the smell of new magazines. pollen and quinces. interesting, feral, but also a bit queasy.

There’s a note of bandaid that I can’t shake off, which automatically puts this in the reject pile. It smells so familiar though, like a place I’ve been to. I just can’t put my finger on it.

Slightly sweet and medicinal leather, I do get camphor--and mold. Perplexing. I sense none of the flowers mentioned.

The description of this one was tantalizing, so I went for a sample. Glad I didn't buy more because YUCK it does not work with my skin chemistry at all. Smells sour, musty, earthy in an off-putting way...like something has started to grow mold. I had applied to my wrist to test and so glad I didn't put it anywhere else, I immediately washed it off. Bummer, I had high hopes!

It smells like sand in a beach. Just pure, mineral sand

This is a quite challenging but ultimately also quite exciting new perfume from Jorum Studios by Euan McCall. If yr looking for a straightforward "LET ME SHOW YOU TOP NOTES THEN HEART THEN BASE", this ain't it. But thoughtful engagement with this surprising composition is highly rewarding! The experience begins with a balsamic spicy herbal leathery opening that quickly settles down into a confusing, blocked up collision of notes. At first, this was upsetting to me & almost made me angry, but ultimately one appreciates that this is part of the ride. As one contemplates what the fucke is going on, a lovely sweet spicy aromatic herbal accord rises up & rescues you from your disorientation. The relief is super pleasurable! Interestingly, the leather note comes & goes in its prominence, circling back & forth repeatedly between foreground & background, but always maintaining its presence. The sweetness is dried fruity for me, and as powdery smooth floral & woody accords rise up, the combined leather/dried fruit/floral/woody accord very much spoke to me as osmanthus. The inky note is super cool too, and reminds me very much of the thick oily smell of Bic ballpoint pen ink. The various accords circle back & forth from foreground to background & back again, in a lovely dance. After a few hours the floral sweet fruity accords settle down & a relatively more monotonic balsamic, leather, inky, woody drydown lets you ease up on the rapt attention this composition requires, and deserves. The leather & inky notes fade quickest over another few hours, leaving an ultimate extended drydown of well-balanced balsamic woody patchouli. And speaking of patchouli, its use throughout the progression is IMO pretty inventive & multifaceted. In earlier stages it lends a smooth powderiness, but as things progress pushes more woody & a little hint of camphoraceous in the extended drydown to keep the balsamic & wood lively, instead of dampening. This is very interesting stuff, and as the marketing copy alludes, is perfectly suited to contemplative, reflective, solitary engagement. I wouldn't spray this on just before leaving the house to engage with the world.

This smells like walking into an abandoned library in the cold autumn sunshine. The first few seconds are like smelling ancient dust on paper (or paper pulp?); sweet, musty, and inky. This almost immediately develops into a camphorous wood (the lavender doesn't really come through and is more reminiscent of an echo of Thieves' Balm rubbed onto skin before bedtime). As this ages on my skin it becomes sweeter with a photorealistic beeswax, ink, and something rooty which I assume is fennel. Do not judge this one without wearing it for at least a few hours so that you can smell the complexities. Be aware that the sample is NOTHING like the full size. This needs to be sprayed. The sample smelled like dark lavender at the bottom of a wooden chest and old beeswax, which was still bewitching, but the full size was so much more interesting.

Impressive stuff from Euan McCall. This is childhood, authentically bottled up into a scent memory. A time still resplendent with the wonder of life, humming, joyous. Honeycomb, crayons, inky newspapers, flower fields, Easters spent in the haystacks. A time when we would still stop and smell the flowers. For us, Hiraeth would be an apt name for this fragrance. But not for him, he's been there, lived it. Here, he shows his chops less as a perfumer and more as a translator. This ability of translation is invaluable, unteachable, especially so when broaching a concept as abstract as this one. Euan McCall is crazy talented. Now I wanna try Cape Wrath, to see if I can smell, close my eyes, and feel the salty ocean spray.

There’s a certain pleasant and comforting nostalgia about this perfume. It reminds me of a smell from a now distant feeling childhood. Perhaps it is the dominant ink note that recalls those Bic pens in elementary school. Or perhaps carefree summers with the notes of hay and lavender wafting in the breeze. While objectively not a beautiful scent, it is nonetheless fascinating, complex and evocative, as so many Jorum perfumes are.

Sour and pungent, like a decent fougère that's curdled. I liked it for 5 mins until it turned, now I hate it. Jorums are more miss than hit for me, and this is another example of ham-fisted indie perfumery. Hard pass.

waxy, dark, inky murky. Interesting concept, but just too waxy for me