Up North

summertime on lake michigan in a bottle. up north begins on a sparkling citrus note at first spray, like sipping a cup of lemonade from the neighbor kid's stand on the walk down to west end beach. after a couple of minutes, it gives way to the water-on-concrete odor of the bayside marina. up north distills the smell of lake algae and freshwater lapping at the sand in a way i can only describe as sublime. there's a strong greenness thanks not only to the trillium note but also to the white willow; the ones by lake michigan take on a slightly bitter, decaying scent as their shed leaves are trampled underfoot by tourists. i haven't experienced such a transcendent, quintessentially midwestern perfume like this since clue perfumery's morel map. alie kiral has done northern michigan very proud!

This perfume is the sun and lake algae drying into your hair, hauling your wet towel and cooler through the dune grass, getting into your car that was parked by the beach, sand still clinging to every inch of your skin and chugging down the last splashes of a warm minute maid lemonade from the cup holder. There is a breezy minerality that carries its opening (think getting misted by lake water waves) to its dry down - which smells just like coming inside after a full day outdoors. Up North is soft, dreamy, and will leave you yearning to sink your feet into wet sand.

This is a lovely fresh breeze off the lake scent, it's beautiful, it really does remind me of northern Michigan and I swear I can smell Petoskey stone in it. It also reminds me of the inside of lighthouses in a very nostalgic way. Unfortunately this is a breeze of a scent too, it fades so rapidly that you're not even really wearing it but just experiencing it for a moment. I'm going to use this more as a cheer up memory in a bottle than a fragrance

was so so so excited to receive a sample with my order of baby pears and it does not disappoint! on me, this is a more wearable wet/water scent than 2030 park avenue. the lemon and floral make this fresh but not too sharp, and really do match the description of a lakeside path. I specifically smell the wet stones and moss/flowers walking by the water. i've been wearing this when its humid and raining outside and it matches perfectly.

Love it... wish it lasted longer. Never have I smelled a lemonade accord but it is definitely there and smells amazing.

stones from the lake that have dried with that mineralic smell on them and something lemony, although if im not focusing on the notes, the first few minutes also smell like sweet pine sap. the dry down is a lot more watery, a hint of lemonade remaining and a coolness left over from the fading of that mineralic bite. i love how this scent develops and the story it tells

a crisp and tangy aquatic just as refreshing as drinking a cold lemonade to quench your thirst after spending a long day under the hot sun. oppressive heat, wet warm sand, seeking solace in the nearby lake, and a hypersensitivity to the scent of earth.

Pretty! It isn’t exactly reminiscent of childhood summers for me, but the refreshing lemonade note paired with florals and aquatics is lovely. Don’t expect it to stick around though — three hours at most, with an intimate sillage.

There is a weird double-edged soda accord floating around here — soda pop from a cold glass bottle and baking soda from a filmy plastic bag. It's very alkaline. Aquatic, sure, but no salt here.

this one is for the edgy kids who said they wanted to drink bleach in middle school. now you can smell like lemony fresh chemical !

I wanted to like this more than I did, sigh. It has one of the weakest sillages from Pearfat, which is the biggest issue to me. The scent itself is beautifully aquatic and lemony, almost a little plasticky in the best way that reminds me of unrestrained summer fun. I love smelling it—I just wish I could actually smell it without shoving my face into my hair to catch the barest whiff! Worth the sample, but not the bottle.

Country Time Lemonade powder and a sharp chlorine bleach note up front. Dry down is much more pleasant and clean, like the smell of a fresh towel used to dry off after going for a swim. The initial 10-15 minutes are rather harsh though

a lemon spritz with a bit of salt on the rim. aquatic with traces of something chemical and chlorine adjacent. definitely a cocktail at the poolside, and very well done. just not for me

Received this as a sample with my order and something about it just smells unbearably moldy to me. If you’re sensitive to damp earthy notes in fragrances I wouldn’t recommend it.

Yeah.... that tracks. This smells like bug spray, powdered lemonade packets, the brine of the tide still on your hair, and a plastic bag full of seashells you got from the beach, still damp. I fear it makes me a little nauseous, and I really wanted to like this as I got the baby pear version. Ah well. Truly a seaside scent.

A limited summer release from hometown hero Alie Kiral’s Pearfat Parfums, Up North is an unexpected and wholly unique take on the summer freshie. Where most houses opt to convey that sweet summer feeling with bright fruit, creamy white florals, or tropical coconut, Up North does what Kiral does best, and captures the idiosyncratic Midwestern reality of summer along Lake Michigan. There is a sort of nostalgia, here, but it is nothing like the fantastic dolce vita vacations of Tom Ford’s Soleil Blanc or Diptyque’s Ilio. This is a summer fragrance for kids whose parents couldn’t afford to take them out of the country, and who had the time of their life splashing around crowded beaches in coastal Michigan nonetheless. Up North is crazy subtle, so much so that it took me weeks of owning a sample to wear it one day and realize, “ait, this is actually genius.” Its most charming point is an instantly recognizable powdered lemonade accord, like taking a standard cola note and drowning it in watery Lemonheads. Behind it lies the familiar ghost of gentle, almost-rotted florals, deemed willow and white trillium. Deeply aquatic, fleeting, and skin-like, it’s hard not to smile after spraying. Even in the thick of my long-awaited Christmas festivities, smelling Up North makes me yearn for Chicago in June. Needless to say, I hope it will make a triumphant return next summer, to comfort us gentle winter-minded folk who find little to romanticize about the thick summer heat without creatives like Kiral taking the reins.

This smells like hose water, lemonade and hot concrete and i absolutely love it.

this smells exactly like pink kinky vodka