Zoologist
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
That mint-and-coconut combination strikes immediately, medicinal and peculiar, like crushing frozen leaves against your palm. The "snow" accord creates a sharp, ozonic brightness that feels almost synthetic in its precision, whilst lily of the valley adds a fleeting soapiness that vanishes as quickly as breath on cold glass.
Iris and galbanum dominate the landscape now, all damp earth and bitter green sap, with snowdrop contributing a subtle lactonic quality that's more texture than scent. The frankincense weaves through like smoke from a distant fire, resinous and contemplative, whilst the white rose remains stubbornly pale and abstract, refusing any hint of jam or indole.
Oakmoss and cedar form a surprisingly tenacious base, earthy and woody, with ambrette's musky-floral whisper and civet's faint animalic purr creating a skin-close aura. The tonka and vanilla never truly sweeten—they simply round the edges, leaving you with something soft, strange, and faintly medicinal that clings like the memory of cold air on warm skin.
Snowy Owl is less a traditional perfume and more a crystalline landscape captured in liquid form. Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has conjured something genuinely strange here—a composition that leads with an almost medicinal mintiness, its coolness amplified by what Zoologist calls "snow", likely a synthetic aldehyde that reads as frozen air. This icy blast collides with coconut, but not the suntan oil variety; instead, it's the pale flesh of fresh coconut, watery and green-tinged, which dovetails unexpectedly well with the galbanum's bitter stems and iris's earthy rootiness. The effect is tundra-like, vegetal, almost austere.
The florals here—lily of the valley, snowdrop, white rose—refuse to bloom warmly. They're pressed between glass slides, preserved specimens rather than living bouquets. Frankincense threads through the heart with its piney resin, reinforcing that this is a scent of ceremony and solitude, not seduction. As it settles, oakmoss and cedar provide a surprisingly robust chypre-adjacent structure, though the musk and ambrette keep things diffuse and soft-focused, like viewing the Arctic through snow-fogged goggles. The vanilla and tonka never sweeten; they merely ghost through, offering the faintest memory of warmth.
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3.5/5 (159)