The beauty of the visual world of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein astounded me and sent me back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Reading the novel again, what stayed with me was the landscapes, the weather, and the emotional weight of the story and its characters.
I finished working on this collection during a cold, isolated New England winter, spending long stretches of time alone with the text and the raw materials. That parallel was not intentional, but it became difficult to ignore. The three fragrances in this collection are responses to emotional and physical environments shaped by creation, devotion, isolation, and loss.
Victor’s Lament moves through obsession and antique interiors. Vellum, candle wax, damp earth, leather-bound books, cold forest-tinged air, oak gall iron ink, and a trace of blood evoke long nights of study, tension, and the frustration of creation and longing.
The Creature inhabits exposure and survival. Deep alpine forest, glowing embers, animal fur, wool, petrichor, and latent electricity evoke endurance, watchfulness, and the fragile awareness of being alive, isolated, and alienated. It’s an extension of where Victor’s Lament started in terms of emotional residue, but colder, more detached, and anchored in the wilderness rather than in enclosed interior spaces.
Elizabeth Lavenza is softness against harshness. Pale white flowers pierced by cold air, silvery resin, antique bridal linens, damp stone, snowmelt, and cracked frozen earth conjure tenderness, restraint, and beauty emerging from loss. It’s rooted deep in the earth, but feels more fragile and feminine than the other two compositions.
This collection grew through solitude and immersion in dark atmospheres that allow earth, resin, paper, air, and cold mineral notes to flourish against a backdrop that feels more human and physical than otherworldly. While each fragrance is materially distinct, they share a common spirit shaped by the same emotional and atmospheric conditions. These scents are made for people drawn to darker, moodier, and earthier perfumes that embrace shadows and heavy emotional weight. I hope they find kinship with those who like to lurk in the darker corners of Shelley’s novel.
Formats & Availability
All fragrances will be available as perfume oils in limited edition 8 ml jet-black glass apothecary bottles and as 15 ml eau de parfum. Perfume oil sample sets will be available when preorders open until they sell out.
Preorders & Shipping Information
Preorders open on Friday, February 13th at 8 pm EST and close on Monday, February 16th at 8 pm EST. Perfume oil sample sets will be available when preorders open and will remain available until sold out.
All preorders will begin shipping on Friday, February 20th, in the order received, with a maximum 15-day turnaround time. The general release date for the collection will be announced once all preorders have shipped.
Mixed carts (general collection items and preorders) will be allowed for this release.
Victor’s Lament
Aroma Palette: cold, tannic, inky, earthy, and bookish
Highlights: vellum, candle wax, damp earth, leather-bound books, cold forest-tinged air, oak gall iron ink, and a trace of blood.
This dark, ominous fragrance evokes the interior world of Victor Frankenstein. It’s cold and shaped by long hours spent indoors absorbed in research and study. It’s tension and darkness, with an aroma palette that is bookish, physical, and eerie.
In this bottle is a room left behind and the memories that remain hanging in the air in the form of scent. Vellum and leather-bound books form a tannic, bookish heart, imprinted with the cold, metallic bite of oak gall iron ink. Candle wax softens the edges while rich damp earth and cold forest-tinged air seep in from the landscape, evoking a mood of neglect and isolation. A faint trace of coppery blood lingers in the background.
Victor’s Lament smells like a museum of natural history left behind to decay.
The Creature
Aroma Palette: woody, green, smoky, animalic, and electrically charged
Highlights: deep alpine forest, glowing embers, animal fur, wool, petrichor, and latent electricity.
The Creature grows out of the same emotional place as Victor’s Lament, but without walls. It’s colder, more detached, and anchored in wilderness rather than rooms. It feels like endurance in the middle of alienation. The inspiration for The Creature is not monstrous here, but solitary, exposed, and shaped by terrain, earth, and wilderness.
Deep alpine forest forms the heart of this composition, with beautifully resinous, syrupy pine and fir notes, damp ground, and cold air emerging on the dry-down. Glowing embers appear quickly, bringing a touch of warmth from fire, while petrichor rises from wet earth after rain. Animal fur and wool bring a bodily, lived-in quality, while also conjuring the animals of the forest. A subtle current of latent electricity runs underneath, coming and going as the scent wears on.
Elizabeth Lavenza
Aroma Palette: mineral, earthy, linen-soft, and coldly floral
Highlights: white flowers pierced by cold air, silvery resin, antique bridal linens, damp stone, snowmelt, and cracked frozen earth.
This melancholy composition shares the same atmospheric environment as Victor’s Lament and The Creature, but its emotional feel is very different. It is the saddest of the three fragrances in this collection, built from cold florals, mineral earth, and worn fabric. The florals here are so cold and enmeshed in earth that they barely register as florals. They feel like they were pressed into ice during a moment of loss and then discovered years later.
A textile note of antique bridal linens weaves through the composition, worn and decaying rather than powdery. It carries the impression of aged fabric submerged in icy water, absorbing air and stone over time. Damp stone and cold mineral earth anchor the dry-down, giving the composition a heavy, grounded earthiness.
Snowmelt runs through the dry-down, clean and faintly metallic, keeping everything cold and eerie. Cracked frozen ground deepens the damp earthiness, while a silvery, translucent resin evokes remnants of deep forest without greenery.