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 waxy chapstick and creamy sunscreen and salty skin, 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, and which is my favorite scent of all time. Thank you, Euan McCall.

Complex and refreshing fragrance, that lasts all day. Beautiful packing and excellent service all round. Thank you!

This fragrance always smells different. Sometimes resinous, sometimes lavender, sometimes patchouli or something undefinable—but always wonderful. It transforms throughout the day, all day long. One spray is enough, and you’re surrounded by a constantly evolving cloud of scent. For me, it suits every season and almost any occasion.

When I travel, I like to pick up a fragrance (or several if we're being real) to remind me of where I've been. When I was visiting Edinburgh from California last October, I searched for perfume shops and came across Jorum Studio. I picked up Athenaeum, and I simply adore it. Even months later, it brings me right back to that trip. Athenaeum is beeswax, old paper, wood, lavender, and hay. Simultaneously cool and warm, like a break in the clouds shining sun on rainsoaked medieval stonework. This is Edinburgh to me. It's an ancient castle full of books, and lit by fat dripping candles, standing in a field of dry grass and lavender. The lavender is faint but the beeswax and woody elements are very present. It's unusual and gorgeous and will always remind me of my trip.

A true gem. For me gives the most delicious impressions of gasoline, wax and foggy heath. A very comforting smell I'd wear in the autumn. It's classic yet intriguing, and like all Jorum perfumes, innovative and without any cliché. Highly recommended.