Nosferatu EDP 100ml

A collaboration between Heretic Parfum x Robert Egger’s Nosferatu (2024) presented by Focus Features, Nosferatu Eau de Macabre imagines what the world of a vampire smells like. Part scent, part apparition, it’s an otherworldly fragrance, straddling a line between this world and the next.

To capture the olfactory universe of Nosferatu into one glass bottle is no mean feat. Heretic wanted to move beyond tropes like blood, roses, smoke or candle wax and explore a very different idea of this creature of the night. Cold, pale and pellucid, this fragrance evokes the uneasy chill of encountering an apparition. It opens with a clap of thunder and downpour of rain outside Count Orlok’s castle. Strikes of lightning fill the air with petrichor and electricity. The damp earth releases a fresh, clean, but ever so musty scent of plant oils and geosmin released from the Carpathian Mountains.

Tangled in the stones of the dark, wet heart chord you will find lilac in a vivid bouquet of cadaverous hues punctuated by inky violet absolute. We are immediately reminded of Nosferatu’s heroine Ellen Hutter. This floral accord of ether conjures memories of forgotten innocence and love everlasting, but in a flash and to our horror the purple beauty vanishes, only to appear once more as if back from the dead. The ionine, also known as “the disappearing molecule”, from her delicate leaves and stems is elusive and will be revived again and again in fleeting moments. Just then, another complex character drifts onto the scene in the form of vegan ambergris. A paradox to our senses, it reminds us of the salty oceans we long for, where a ship is waiting to take us home. Soft and velvety, the ambergris dances on the skin in a nostalgic waltz that is both delicate and hedonistic.

This fragrance makes us contemplate the primal instincts that are within us all, and the twilight zone between man and beast inhabited by the vampire – It’s a fragrance that will haunt you, but in the best possible way.

NOTES
Top: Lilac, Ambrette
Middle: Petrichor, Violet Absolute, Orris Concrete, Cypriol
Base: Vegan Ambergris, Oud, Labdanum

PERFUMER
Douglas Little

HOW IT WEARS
Nosferatu begins with the crisp, watery petrichor accord and lilac, like cold rain on a castle garden. As it wears, vegetal iris and earthy violets appear, quietly though, contributing just a whisper of floral sweetness to the fragrance, before the oud and cypriol add what could almost be interpreted as a smell of slight decay or mildew – not repulsive but just a little unnerving. The dry down is all about the vegan ambergris or ambroxan which lasts about 6 hours but sits close to the skin.

LORE LOVES
We love that Nosferatu isn’t a totally literal fragrance concept wise – it’s a really creative interpretation of the themes in the film. It feels distinctly cold and damp like a big empty castle, but in a delicate way, it’s not too overt, which makes for a bit of eerie suspense. We love Heretic’s use of lilac – a flower that appears over and over again in the film – most notably at the end (no spoilers!), and how it evokes beauty, melancholy, and when interacting with the other more dirty/earthy notes, a slight feeling of unease. In short, it’s genius.