The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Seylon is Odin's eighth numbered fragrance, named for the island now known as Sri Lanka, a place synonymous with vetiver in the perfume world. The brand's founders, Eddy Chai and Paul Birardi, had built a fashion business in New York City, then moved into fragrance in 2009 with a clear principle: each scent should tell you something about a place, a material, a idea. For Seylon, the material was vetiver, not just any vetiver, but the kind that comes from Sri Lanka's wild, tropical landscape. Philippe Romano was tasked with translating that terroir into something wearable.
What makes this composition unusual is the choice to lean into vetiver's harder edges rather than softening them. Most modern vetiver fragrances add cream or sweetness to make the material more approachable. Here, the vetiver arrives with its mineral, almost smoky character intact, supported by benzoin for subtle warmth and oakmoss for an earthy, slightly mossy dryness. The yuzu and bitter orange opening serves a specific purpose: it creates a cool, watery contrast to the earthiness underneath, making the vetiver feel less like a single note and more like a landscape.
The evolution
The opening hits crisp and tart, yuzu's watery brightness against the sharp citrus punch of bitter orange, with bergamot softening the edges just slightly. For the first twenty minutes, it's clean and direct, almost astringent. Then the hand-off begins. The citrus recedes, and the heart emerges: nutmeg's warm spice, elemi resin's faint camphor quality, and vermouth's bitter-herbaceous character that adds an unexpected complexity. This is where the fragrance shifts from bright to grounded. By the second hour, the vetiver has taken over, dry, mineral, slightly smoky, with benzoin's faint sweetness threading through. The oakmoss keeps it close to the skin, mossy and intimate. On most skin types, this base holds for 6-8 hours. The next morning, there's a faint trace on fabric, clean, warm, and still recognizably vetiver.
Cultural impact
08 Seylon occupies a specific corner of the niche fragrance world: the vetiver-focused composition that doesn't apologize for its material. It arrived during a period when vetiver was being rediscovered by independent houses after decades as a supporting player in masculine designer fragrances. The fragrance's moderate sillage and long drydown appeal to a wearer who wants complexity without announcement, someone who understands vetiver's range and wants to explore its earthier side.
The House
OdinOdin New York emerged in 2009 as a fragrance extension of a New York-based fashion retailer, creating unisex scents that draw from global travel and unconventional material pairings. The brand developed two distinct collections: the Black Line, characterized by rich exotic destinations, and the White Line, exploring deconstructed floral compositions. Founded by Eddy Chai and Paul Birardi, the house approached fragrance as an extension of a lifestyle aesthetic rather than a standalone beauty product. Each fragrance carries a numeric designation followed by a geographic or cultural name, anchoring the scent to a specific place or concept. The brand ceased introducing new fragrances around 2015, but its catalog continues to circulate among collectors and enthusiasts of niche perfumery.
The Creator
Philippe RomanoRomano's signature was the interplay between lush florals and vivid fruit. He developed a rare fluency with butyrates and sulfurous accords, a knowledge he refined through collaboration with flavorists, and he applied it to create some of the most memorable fruity fine fragran…
