The ocean is a graveyard. As long as it has existed, it has swallowed ships whole, devoured the lost and the damned, and sung lullabies of ruin in its ceaseless tide. Those who stand at its edge know it is not really blue, it is black – a fathomless chasm, glistening obsidian under a waning moon.
As the last traces of daylight dissolve into the horizon, the true denizens of Black Salt Beach make their way to the shore – the goths. They move like silhouettes against the phosphorescent tide, their feet sinking into the black volcanic sand. This is not the soft, saccharine powder of golden shores. No, this sand is forged from fire, born of eruption and destruction.
Heretic’s master perfumer has long sought to distil the essence of the beach at night in a ravishing fragrance. The result is Black Salt: A moody and mineralic scent that is more hypnotic than a mermaid. It opens with a sharp, spectral flicker of lime, bright as lightning over a storm-tossed sea. Eucalyptus follows, brisk and medicinal, like something dabbed on a wound no one speaks of. At its heart: spellbinding black water lily, blooming somewhere deep and lightless, untouched by sun or sentiment. Seaweed drapes the base like mourning lace, briny, green, and gently unsettling.
It’s a fragrance for those who prefer their coastlines windswept and slightly haunted – the scent of shipwrecked letters and fog horns heard from unmarked shores. Wear it when you want to be remembered… vaguely, and with a shiver.
NOTES
Top: Black Pepper, Lime, Tangerine, Eucalyptus
Middle: Jasmine Sambac, Water Lily, Turkish Rose, Smoked Sea Salt
Base: Seaweed, Labdanum, Petrichor
PERFUMER
Douglas Little
HOW IT WEARS
Black Salt begins cold, wet and watery – lime, tangerine and petrichor working together to create a crisp, fresh opening. It doesn’t take long though before the tide begins to turn and you pick up the smoked sea salt, seaweed, black pepper and eucalyptus, which together add a realistic “beachy” feel to the fragrance. As it wears, it gets more and more pleasant, like the sun coming out as the tide washes away leftover seaweed on a beach. Rose, jasmine and waterlily mixed with labdanum and musks then create a pleasant ozonic feeling which lasts until the end of the wear of the scent. Black Salt has excellent projection and will last 6-8 hours of spellbinding wear on the skin.
LORE LOVES
You know how in 18th century England, doctors would prescribe a stay at the seaside as a kind of catch-all cure for things like melancholy, hysteria, or “nervous issues”? Black Salt feels like the fragrance equivalent of that to us. You’re at the seaside, yes, but it’s not a blue-skyed, crystal-watered, white-sanded Australian beach. It’s one with pebbles instead of sand, it’s cold, and the water is a little too treacherous to swim in. It’s one you might walk down with your black parasol, pouring over the letters of your lost lover, thinking of what might have been. Don’t get us wrong, this fragrance can (and should!) still be worn in summer, but it’s the first time we’ve smelt a beachy scent that feels like when a storm hits the coast, or the beach at nighttime, or in the dead of winter – basically it’s anything but a sunny, picturesque vignette. Bravo to Heretic for once again creating something we’ve never experienced before! P.S. Lovers of Nosferatu, we think this fragrance might be your next obsession. It shares the dank, wet, earthy opening of Nosferatu, except instead of being at a cold castle, you’re at a cold beach.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Heretic – one who does not conform to the ideals or opinions of the masses; one who follows their own path.
Created in 2016 in New York by Douglas Little, Heretic Parfum is a fragrance house with a mission to show the provocative side of naturals and the dirty side of clean.
Based on the mysterious, sensual and feral aspects of nature, Heretic began with a conscious choice to do things a little differently. The fragrances in the line are all plant based, made up of a blend of essential oils, concretes and absolutes, blended with non-GMO safe synthetics and alcohols to create challenging, unapologetic, visionary scents.
“Natural fragrances are much like wine in that you can detect nuances of the plant, the soil, and its surroundings. They have characters that cannot be achieved with synthetic copies. These fragrances are alive, they create an olfactory fingerprint” – Douglas Little.
As Heretic boldly disrupts the status quo of the fragrance industry with their radical transparency, their fragrances delve into the esoteric world and the realms of homeopathy, ayerveda, and herbology.
All Heretic Parfum fragrances are cruelty free and vegan, and range from 100% natural to 47% natural.
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