The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
No. 97 The Guava Tree came together in 2022, the work of Jo Shaw, the perfumer behind Floriography. The composition joins a numbered catalogue of releases, each one tied to a specific image or impression. The entry began with a single image: a guava tree in full leaf, the fruit not quite ripe, the air around it cut with green rather than sweetness. The structure follows the tree rather than the fruit. Eucalyptus and galbanum lead the opening with a sharp, resinous snap that reads more botanical than perfumed. The guava itself waits at the heart, cushioned by hyacinth and the cool ozonic lift that opens the composition to air. Sandalwood and vetiver stand in for bark and root, anchoring the whole composition to soil. The result keeps the fruit distant and the leaves close.
What makes No. 97 work is the way it inverts expectation. Galbanum, that sharp resinous green, does the heavy lifting in the opening, and it refuses to soften into anything overtly sweet. The ozonic notes suggest open air rather than water, and even the sandalwood in the base is dry, not creamy. There is very little of the candied quality that fruit fragrances carry, and the guava arrives almost as a memory of fruit rather than the fruit itself. The composition stays sparse across its wear, and the sparseness feels deliberate. Each note earns its place, and nothing crowds the green.
The evolution
The opening reads aggressively green, the way eucalyptus and galbanum push outward on first contact with skin, with a melon underneath keeping things cool rather than sweet. There is a slight camphor edge that reads clean, almost medicinal. It is the leaf before the flower, and it announces itself with confidence. After the opening settles, the guava arrives through the hyacinth, watery and faintly floral. The ozonic accord lifts the whole thing upward, suggesting an open window and humid air. This phase reads less like a fragrance and more like standing near a fruiting tree on a still afternoon. Not loud. Just present. The floral quality of the hyacinth weaves through the fruit and keeps the composition from collapsing into something tropical and obvious. The drydown is where the composition earns its staying power.
Cultural impact
The doubled guava leaf and the ozonic lift give No. 97 a specificity you don't often encounter in tropical-leaning compositions. The fruit is there, but it waits behind layers of green resin and hyacinth, and the result is drier, quieter, and more botanical than most of its category would suggest. Wearing it, the scent reads more like a garden in high summer than a poolside drink. The galbanum pushes outward first, then the leaves, then the fruit at a distance, then the woods at the base. Each transition feels earned, and the composition never tips into the syrupy territory that fruit fragrances sometimes fall into.
