The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
September 23 arrived in 2023, carrying the kind of seasonal weight its name suggests, a threshold moment, late summer tipping toward autumn, and the scent behaves like it. There's an undercurrent of seasonal shift in every accord, a sense that something is ending and something else is asserting itself beneath the surface. The composition reads as a chypre floral, but one that refuses to settle into the genre's softer gestures, holding instead to a colder, more astringent register throughout its development. Perfumer Natalia Vitkovskaya built the fragrance around a tension between bright, almost bitter top notes and the heavier, smoke-touched materials that anchor the base, and that contrast gives the scent its particular gravity.
What makes this composition structurally unusual is the pairing of absinthe wormwood, a bitter, almost toxic green note, against chrysanthemum, which carries its own dusty, herbal melancholy. The result pushes the genre toward something more earthy and less polished, built on guaiac wood, tar, and a generous thread of soil accord that lends the chypre framework a darker, more mineral footing than its conventional counterparts.
The evolution
Wormwood and ginger open the composition, green and sharp, almost medicinal. Absinthe's bitter edge cuts through cleanly before the ginger warms the top into something spicier and more deliberate. As the fragrance moves into its heart phase, the chrysanthemum arrives, dusty and slightly metallic, and the guaiac wood begins to ground the composition. The heart phase is where the chypre architecture becomes visible, but filtered through a darker lens that favors smoke and shadow over the genre's brighter facets. Tar and balsamic notes thicken the base as the composition continues to develop, and the moss and soil accord settle into something dense, mineral, and surprisingly intimate against the skin.
Cultural impact
September 23 arrived in 2023 from Incarna parfums, and the release has drawn attention for its unusually literary approach to fragrance composition. The name itself, a date on a calendar, sets up a specific seasonal mood that the scent then delivers on, treating fragrance as a kind of seasonal prose rather than a straightforward product launch. The composition fits within a wider current of niche perfumery interested in atmosphere and narrative, where the selling point is as much the world a fragrance evokes as the materials it contains.
