The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
De Los Santos draws from the rituals of All Saints' Day and Día de los Muertos, those moments when communities gather to remember the dead. The name itself is a nod to that overlap, the way different traditions honor saints and ancestors with candles, flowers, and quiet devotion. Jérôme Epinette translated this into scent by building from cool, clear herbal notes, clary sage's clean precision, then threading in mirabelle plum for a sweetness that feels like a brief offering before the warm, resinous Cistus settles. It's a fragrance about memory, about the smell of a room that held ceremony and now holds only silence.
What makes this structure interesting is the hand-off between phases. The clary sage opens cool and almost medicinal in its clarity, but it doesn't stay that way. The mirabelle plum adds a fleeting sweetness, stone fruit, slightly tart, before the heart of Cistus and orris root takes over. Cistus brings a warm, resinous depth that feels like amber warmed by candlelight. Orris root adds powdery violet-like elegance that elevates the herbal foundation into something more complex.
The evolution
The opening is clary sage, cool, herbaceous, with a clarity that borders on medicinal. Almost clinical in its precision. Then the mirabelle plum arrives, brief and sweet, before the heart of Cistus and orris root settles in. The Cistus adds warmth, a resinous depth that feels like candlelight. The orris root brings powdery elegance, violet-like and slightly sweet. The drydown is Palo Santo and ambroxan, the woody austerity of Palo Santo grounded by clean, close musk. It lingers close to the skin, intimate rather than projecting widely. On some skin, it reads almost entirely as steeping green tea. On others, the incense returns late in the drydown, that church-memory reasserting itself hours later.
Cultural impact
De Los Santos offers a distinctive aromatic character that some compare to Santal 33 and Thé Noir 29. The fragrance brings something individual to those seeking unconventional scents, with its unique blend of herbal, resinous, and woody notes creating an intimate experience that lingers close to the skin.
