The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Arboreta arrived in 2019 from the Portland studio of Heather Sielaff, a licensed massage therapist who first explored aromatherapy as a way to nurture and care for others, and soon began blending oils as a hobby. From those beginnings, Sielaff built OLO with a focus on capturing moments and landscapes in scent. The composition leans into the idea of a curated collection of trees, a botanical garden rather than something untamed. Every turn reveals disparate shades of green, the brand's own copy reads, sunlight filtering through rain-soaked leaves. That image sits at the heart of the scent.
Arboreta works as a layered green composition. Coniferous fir gives it backbone, birch brings a cool presence, green leaves provide that vivid chlorophyll character, and white musk underneath holds everything together so the accord reads as one continuous gesture rather than a stack of separate notes. The listed smoky and leathery touches sit within the accord profile, adding depth without pulling the composition off its green axis. The whole thing treats green as the center of gravity, the thing the other materials orbit around, which is a less common choice than it might seem.
The evolution
Arboreta opens like stepping into a greenhouse after a storm. The green notes hit first, vivid and almost sharp, the kind of green that makes your mouth water. The fir soon asserts itself, that clean coniferous sting, and the green leaves begin to settle into something rounder and more familiar. The birch shows up quietly in the early wear, bringing a cool quality that reads almost mineral, a different register from the opening green. As the composition develops, the whole thing mellows into something closer to a skin-scent, white musk rising underneath, the woods still present but softer, more like the memory of the forest than the forest itself. Later in the wear, what's left close to the skin is a faint musk, and on clothing the trace reads clean and slightly woody.
Cultural impact
Arboreta fits into OLO's catalogue as a study in place, specifically the managed green of a curated tree collection rather than the rugged wilderness. The fragrance stays close to its core accord of fir, birch, green leaves, and white musk, with listed smoky and leathery touches adding depth without pushing the composition toward something louder. Within the niche conversation around green fragrances, Arboreta shows up as a quieter, cooler option, often mentioned alongside D.S. & Durga's Cowboy Grass by community members browsing Parfumo who also liked Arboreta.
