The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Smell Like A King launched in 2023 as part of Experimental Perfume Club's Blends Collection, conceived by perfumer Emmanuelle Moeglin. The brief was monarchy reimagined: not gilded halls and incense, but cigars in a back room, whiskey poured heavy, absinthe burning green in a crystal glass. Moeglin's work at EPC treats perfumery as a craft worth taking seriously, with compositions built on raw materials chosen for their character rather than their crowd appeal. Her approach sits somewhere between the editorial and the accessible, the kind of niche fragrance that doesn't demand a glossary to appreciate. Smell Like A King reads as a portrait of power held quietly, the kind of scent that doesn't announce the crown because it assumes you already know.
Absinthe and tobacco rarely share a composition without one swallowing the other, but here they negotiate. The absinthe brings that cool, bitter green at the top, like something stirred behind a bar at midnight, anise-edged and faintly menacing before it relaxes. Then cypriol, sometimes called nagarmotha, roots the heart with a smoky, earthy density that closer resembles burnt sugar and vetiver than any traditional wood.
The evolution
The first twenty minutes belong to absinthe. Cool, herbal, slightly bitter, it arrives like a drink set down untouched. The anise edge sharpens the opening into something almost medicinal before the green relaxes into something warmer. Around the thirty-minute mark, tobacco and cypriol take the throne. The tobacco isn't sweet or syrupy, it's dry, leafy, slightly leathery, the smell of a cigar smoked three rooms away. Cypriol smolders underneath, adding a burnt-wood depth that pushes the composition away from anything linear. By hour three, the cedarwoods arrive, both Atlas and Virginia, turning the scent architectural and stable. The herbs fade but don't disappear, leaving a faint aromatic ghost that hovers just above the skin like steam. The drydown settles into something that feels substantial, woody and faintly sweet, carrying a quiet weight that holds well into the evening.
Cultural impact
Smell Like A King arrived in 2023 as part of Experimental Perfume Club's Blends Collection, a release shaped around absinthe, tobacco, and cedarwoods as central materials. The composition draws on imagery of after-dark rituals, the back room, the heavy pour, the cigar left to smolder, and translates that visual language into something wearable. Within Experimental Perfume Club's catalog, it stands as one of the bolder expressions, leaning into smoke and dryness rather than sweetness or florals.
