The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Decadence was released in 2023 as part of Volume I, the opening chapter in Arina Franzén's numbered catalog system. She composed the formula herself, working in the register that suits her practice best: materials gathered into a single continuous scene rather than scattered across a traditional top-heart-base skeleton. The notes she chose, coffee, cocoa, cep mushroom, tobacco, and a stack of woods, read as one unfolding environment, something atmospheric and whole. The opening carries a roasted bitterness that pulls you in before anything sweet has a chance to register. As the composition settles, the gourmand elements fold into the darker, earthier notes, and what remains is a dry, woody character with smoke curling through it.
The unusual note here is cep mushroom, an earthy, almost loamy accent that bridges the gourmand sweetness of cocoa and coffee with the woody base beneath. The mushroom gives the whole composition a fungal undertone that keeps the sweetness from ever tipping into cloying. It acts as a translator between the rich edible elements and the drier materials underneath, grounding cocoa's powdery warmth and coffee's bitter roast in something organic and damp.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are sharp and slightly bitter, dominated by the roasted coffee note sitting over basil and bergamot. That brightness burns off faster than expected, giving way to something deeper within the first half hour. By the thirty-minute mark, cocoa moves in and deepens the whole composition, with carnation lending a clove-like warmth and the cep pushing everything toward something earthen. This is the phase that polarizes: some wearers find the mushroom-fungal edge fascinating, others feel it tips too far into dirt. Around the two-hour mark, the base settles into view, tobacco, vanilla, sandalwood, oak wood, cypress, and that curious bran note, all blending into a dry, woody-gourmand finish that stays close to skin. The bran in particular adds a bready, almost biscuity dryness that keeps the vanilla from going soft.
Cultural impact
Decadence leans into ingredients that most gourmand compositions avoid, mushroom, bran, burnt coffee, materials that carry an earthy, sometimes uncomfortable edge. Where conventional gourmands build their sweetness on vanilla, caramel, and confectioner's sugar, this one threads its richness through cocoa, tobacco, and fungal notes, arriving at something that reads as edible but never really sweet. The bran note in particular adds a bready, savory quality that distances the fragrance from the dessert aisle entirely. Within Volume I, it functions as a tonal anchor, setting a mood that prioritizes atmosphere over approachability.
The House
Arina FranzénArina Franzén is an independent, Sweden-based perfumer who operates two distinct fragrance lines from her studio in Uppsala: Arina Franzén Perfumery, her botanical and all-natural fragrance house, and Dark Tales (sold as ByDarkTales on Etsy), her mixed-media artisan perfumery label. Trained at the Natural Perfumers Academy, she creates both lines by hand, organizing her compositions into numbered Volumes rather than traditional product launches. With fragrances like Ancient Woods (2023), Tuberose Noir (2019), and Smoke & Mirrors, her work centers on natural materials and aromatic storytelling that blurs the lines between fine fragrance and sensory art.
The Creator
Arina FranzénSignature technique: botanical perfumery built from natural materials, composed with a novelist's patience and a horror fan's flair for atmosphere. Franzén works exclusively within the natural palette, coaxing depth from absolutes, resins, and tinctures rather than synthetics,…
