The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Butterflies in My Stomach is the opening note of ISAK's Love Note collection, a line built around the emotional vocabulary of falling for someone. The fragrance takes the title literally: that lurching, fizzy, half-nauseous feeling when a new person walks into the room and rearranges everything. ISAK built it around contrast, bright citrus and tart fruit up top against the dense, creamy pull of tuberose in the middle. Blood orange and raspberry carry the giddy, overexposed energy of the first hours. Then the white floral and amber step in, the part where the banter slows and something quieter takes over. It's a scent for the stage before anything is certain, when every text could mean everything or nothing.
The interesting move here is the choice to pair blood orange and raspberry, two notes that already overlap in their sweetness, then route them straight into tuberose, which is heavier and more narcotic than either. Most fruity florals soften the fruit with a sheer white musk. This one lets the fruit flash, then drops the listener into something more resinous. Amber in the heart, not the base, does the same work twice, first warming the floral from below, then anchoring the drydown. The guaiac wood and vetiver at the bottom keep the sweetness from collapsing into confection. It's a structure built for tension, not comfort.
The evolution
The first fifteen minutes are a sugar rush. Blood orange and bergamot hit sharp and clean, with raspberry threading underneath like a tart afterthought. Then something shifts. The citrus doesn't fade so much as get crowded out, tuberose pushing forward with a creamy, almost humid weight. Rose joins it, not as a separate note but as a softening agent, rounding the tuberose's edges. By the end of the first hour, the amber has settled in and the whole composition tilts warmer. The drydown is where this fragrance earns its keep. Guaiac wood and vetiver arrive together, giving the sweetness a smoked, slightly bitter spine. Musk pulls everything close to skin. What started as nervous energy becomes something quieter, almost private. On clothes the next morning, the guaiac wood outlasts everything else, leaving a faint woody warmth that lingers through a second wear.
Cultural impact
This is a fragrance for someone who treats falling in love like a sport. The Love Note collection, which Butterflies in My Stomach opens, is built around emotional staging, the specific moments of attraction that everyone recognizes but few fragrances name. There's something almost cinematic about the way it opens, the blood orange and raspberry catching the light of a new crush before the tuberose arrives to mark the shift from nervous laughter to a different kind of quiet. The white florals and amber carry the composition into late-evening territory, the point where the room has emptied and the conversation has changed.
