The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Taiwanese Mermaid arrived in 2020, a fragrance that takes its bearings from the island itself. Jasmine Tea On The Moon, Formosa Butterfly, and Taiwanese Cupid share shelf space with this one, each translating a different facet of local life into scent. Fang Fang, the perfumer behind the house, has built a body of work rooted in the textures and climates that surround her studio. The mermaid of Taiwanese folklore is not the siren of Western seas. She lingers at the edge of harbors and tide pools, part of the landscape rather than separate from it. The fragrance takes that presence and folds it into something wearable, a portrait of the figure rather than a costume.
What makes this composition distinctive is the way it refuses the obvious aquatic template. Taiwanese Mermaid sidesteps the usual shortcuts entirely. Instead, green tea and white tea do the work of evoking water, their delicate vegetal coolness reading as mist and tide through sheer suggestion rather than literal reconstruction. The fennel is the surprise. It adds a clean, anise-edged sharpness that keeps the tea from turning into a simple refresher, introducing a savory, almost culinary note that wakes the whole composition up.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are all about tension. Green tea and pink grapefruit arrive together, the grapefruit's sharp citrus bite slicing through the tea's soft vegetal coolness. It reads almost sharp, almost bracing. Then something settles. The white tea underneath starts to assert itself, and the grapefruit smooths out into something rounder, less aggressive. By the twenty-minute mark, the opening has resolved into something remarkably clean, almost crystalline. Around the one-hour point, the heart takes over. Blue lotus arrives first, bringing a soft, watery floral note that has more in common with a pond than a bouquet. Fennel appears next, that anise-edged coolness adding an unexpected savory dimension. Frankincense grounds the whole thing, its resinous warmth threading through the lotus and fennel like a low current. This is the phase that surprises people.
Cultural impact
The mermaid at the heart of Taiwanese Mermaid isn't the Western siren luring sailors to their deaths. She's rooted in Taiwanese coastal imagination, part of the landscape rather than apart from it, a figure who lingers at the edge of harbors and tide pools as a natural extension of the shore. Among wearers, the fragrance has found a following with people who want something cool and unconventional, a green-leaning composition that achieves its aquatic impression through vegetal means rather than the usual synthetic shortcut. It's a quiet choice, and it rewards a certain kind of wearer who finds luxury in restraint.
