De Los Santos.

In 2022, Byredo turned to the rituals of remembrance. De Los Santos draws from Día de los Muertos and All Saints' Day, traditions built on the premise that the living and the dead share the same air. Jérôme Epinette was tasked with making that belief smell like something. His brief from Ben Gorham was sparse, almost cryptic: three words, something about candles. What emerged wasn't a celebration of death, exactly. It was an olfactory study of what remains after the ceremony ends, when the incense cools, the flowers wilt, but the living still gather in the same room.

The most interesting thing about this composition is what it does with time. The opening is bright and almost medicinal, clary sage cutting through mirabelle's sweetness like a window opened in an old church. But that clarity doesn't last. What replaces it is deeper, darker, resinous, labdanum and orris root creating an almost powdery animalic warmth. It's the smell of accumulated ceremony, of smoke that's been burning for hours, settling into stone. Then the base arrives and makes it personal. Guaiac wood and ambroxan over musk, not loud, not performative, just warm and close and lasting.

The opening hits bright and almost clinical, clary sage's cool clarity, mirabelle's sweetness cutting through like light in an old church. It's clean, green, and just slightly medicinal. That brightness lasts maybe thirty minutes before it begins to quiet. The heart doesn't arrive so much as settle. Labdanum and orris root create something powdery and almost animalic, the smell of incense that's been burning for hours, absorbed into stone. At this point you might think you've walked into somewhere sacred by accident. Then the drydown makes it yours. Guaiac wood and ambroxan wrap around musk, warm, close, skin-like. Six to eight hours on most skin, lingering intimate and tender, like the warmth of a sweater worn by someone recently gone. The smoke never fully disappears. It just becomes yours.

Since its 2022 debut, De Los Santos has developed a loyal following among fragrance wearers who seek something more contemplative than performative. Byredo has built its identity on scent-as-storytelling, and this one occupies a quieter corner of that house, for those who want fragrance to feel like ritual, not declaration.