What We Do Is Secret / A Lab on Fire
What We Do Is Secret / A Lab on Fire
127 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Lime and yuzu burst with Mediterranean clarity, their zestiness immediately undercut by a creamy aldehyde haze that softens the citrus into something almost powdery. This isn't a sparkling bergamot opening; it's muted, studied, as though filtered through frosted glass.
Thyme blossom emerges with herbaceous subtlety, lending an almost savoury quality that prevents sweetness from developing. The aldehydes and citrus begin their retreat as the composition settles into a cool, slightly soapy aromatic zone where fresh and woody notes achieve an uneasy truce.
Hinoki cypress and cedarwood surface faintly, their pale, almost colourless woodiness barely distinguishable from skin chemistry. The musk dissolves into a barely-there warmth before the fragrance effectively vanishes, leaving only the faintest memory of herbal-tinged woods.
Almost Transparent Blue arrives as a study in restraint, a fragrance that whispers rather than declares. Bruno Jovanovic has constructed something genuinely unusual here: a composition where the citrus–aquatic–woody triad feels less like a conventional structure and more like the olfactory equivalent of Japanese minimalism. The lime and yuzu opening announces itself with crisp clarity, but what makes this scent compelling is how those aldehydes in the heart don't amplify the citrus into brightness—instead, they lend a subtle soapiness, a powdery coolness that sits uncomfortably between fresh and ethereal. Thyme blossom introduces an unexpected herbal prickle, preventing the composition from sliding into predictable fruity-floral territory.
What We Do Is Secret have created something for the person who finds most fragrances exhausting. This is a scent for grey London mornings, for minimalist interiors, for those who treat fragrance as an atmospheric footnote rather than a conversation starter. The hinoki cypress–cedarwood–musk foundation is barely visible until you lean in close, suggesting a pale wooden structure beneath translucent silk. There's an aquatic quality that feels neither aquatic in the ozonic sense nor particularly aqueous—rather, it's the aromatic equivalent of negative space, what's suggested rather than stated.
Add fragrances to your collection and unlock your personalised scent DNA, note map, and shareable identity card.
3.7/5 (242)