Notes from the perfumer, Euan McCall:

Athenaeum is a slight departure for us. With this fragrance I wanted to present a distant and forgotten memory from childhood, growing up in rural Scotland, more specifically, reading books and newspapers under an old oak that sat on the edge of a field and Bluebell wood.

This memory was awakened by a recent olfactory experience. This time in the urban scent-scape of Edinburgh: in the National Library and archives.

As soon as I entered the archives, childhood memories of lazily thumbing through texts in a field came flooding back. I was amused to stumble upon this shared yet unrelated olfactory fingerprint. I wanted to re-create the sensation of both points of reference in Athenaeum.

Sensorially, Athenaeum is like the drizzle of honey fresh from the hive, the smear of beeswax on aged cabinet, the first sip of cold cider savoured in the orchard from which it came to be. Athenaeum is the cloudburst of lavender-thick pollen ricocheting from delicate wing in flight. Athenaeum is the history of the creator sewn together with gilded thread. 

In a way, Athenaeum picks up where Carduus left off. Carduus is a visceral scent memory that is hard to shake. Athenaeum was, for a long time, forgotten.