The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
The Untamed arrives from melt season in 2026, composed by Anne Flipo, a perfumer whose name carries serious weight in the niche world. The pairing is quietly interesting in its own right, a creator of notable pedigree working with a young label rather than conforming to the usual heritage houses. The Untamed sits within melt season's Classic Season collection, and the concept emphasizes instinct, freedom from restraint, and movement. Rather than chasing comfort or crowd-pleasing warmth, the brief points toward something feral and unfettered. There's a restless green energy that runs through the whole composition from start to finish, a quality that feels less composed than it does barely contained.
Galbanum leads the charge, a raw, biting green note that opens sharp and almost aggressive. Wormwood, the botanical backbone of absinthe, adds a dry herbal bitterness that sits somewhere between medicine and wild meadow. Blackcurrant bud sneaks in a sharp, almost mentholated sweetness to keep things from going austere, a counterweight to all that bitter green. The heart stacks sage against cardamom and coriander, green aromatics layered on top of one another with intent.
The evolution
The first spray hits sharp and almost aggressive, galbanum and wormwood hitting your nose like snapping a fresh leaf mid-stem. There's a cold, resinous quality underneath, the kind that makes you blink. Within fifteen minutes the blackcurrant warms through, adding a dark, jammy counterpoint that keeps the green from feeling clinical. The heart opens up between thirty and ninety minutes, sage and coriander meeting somewhere between fresh-cut grass and dried spice. Cardamom threads through clean and slightly sweet, pulling the composition away from austerity. By hour two, the patchouli grounds everything, earthy and a touch damp, settling into the musk like soil after rain. The base lingers longest, warm and slightly vegetal, the green notes softened into something almost skin-like.
Cultural impact
Anne Flipo composing for an independent label is a move worth paying attention to on its own, a perfumer whose track record speaks for itself choosing to work with a younger house rather than staying within more established circuits. That choice reads as a statement about where interesting perfumery is happening right now, and melt season clearly wanted the kind of profile she brings. The collaboration itself signals ambition, and the result, The Untamed, lands as a fragrance that doesn't apologize for its sharper edges.
