The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
We Shall Be Monsters arrived as part of Poesie's Mary Shelley's Nightmare collection. Joelle Nealy composed the scent herself, and the collection's literary framing runs through the composition without ever resolving into something soft or easily wearable. The result pulls from graveyard soil and metallic atmosphere, from the green bite of galbanum and the dry, unsweetened pull of black licorice root. Bitter almond joins the construction, adding a sharp marzipan-adjacent note that refuses to round into comfort. No sweetness offered as escape. No floral to soften the landing. The fragrance doesn't flinch from its own strangeness, and that restraint becomes its most distinctive gesture.
The note structure here is unusual for a reason. Bitter almond and black licorice sit side by side, both carrying a sharp, unsweetened quality that reads as cold rather than comforting, and their interaction creates a tension most compositions try to resolve. Galbanum cuts through with a metallic green that gives the opening its almost industrial sting, a vegetal note pushed to its sharpest register. The metallic notes do real work in the composition, and they keep the earth accord from collapsing into something merely herbal.
The evolution
The opening belongs to galbanum and soil, a green-black cold that reads almost like ink spilled on wet stone. There's something metallic underneath, present enough to register as a distinct element rather than a suggestion. Then the almond surfaces. Not the marzipan kind. The bitter green kind, and it deepens the composition rather than softening it. The licorice arrives without sweetness, root rather than candy, and merges with the earth accord into something that smells less like a fragrance and more like a place. Over time the metallic notes quiet but the dirt and licorice remain, stubborn, close to skin. The drydown carries a faint bitter almond and paper trace, with the cold lingering longer than most greens. The composition stays close rather than projecting, and the base notes remain readable well into the day.
Cultural impact
We Shall Be Monsters occupies a particular corner of the indie perfume landscape. The fragrance doesn't court mass appeal, and the people drawn to it tend to seek out compositions with sharp edges and unsweet profiles. The graveyard dirt and metallic notes signal its territory immediately, and that visibility filters its audience naturally. Those who want comfort in a bottle move on quickly. Those who want something stranger, something that smells like a place rather than a product, tend to stay.
