The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
In 2022, David-Lev Jipa Slivinschi reached into an old pocket and found a coin from someone he couldn't place, a place he couldn't recall. The gesture was childhood, find a coin, find a well, make a wish. But wells had dried up. Marble had cracked. Prayers had turned to dust. And yet the coin remained. Toskovat', the Romanian niche house he founded that same year, draws its name from Russian toска, a longing without a clear object, an ache without a named target. Every creation is an extrait de memoire, a memory made material. Empty Wishes Well is that gesture transformed into scent, the rusted hinge of a childhood ritual reduced to mineral dust.
The note selection for Empty Wishes Well is deliberate in its austerity. Rust and metallic notes evoke oxidized iron, the physical detritus of abandoned infrastructure. Petrichor and leaves ground the heart in damp earth, while sage provides aromatic counterweight. Myrrh adds a single resinous thread of warmth. The drydown refuses easy comfort, relying on vetiver, java vetiver, and patchouli for earthy depth, with carrot seed and galbanum introducing a bitter-green edge that keeps the finish unresolved. This is a composition built from decay and longing, not from sweetness or escape.
The evolution
The fragrance opens with the cold shock of rust and metal, as if the well's chain has broken and left oxidized residue on the skin. This metallic weight persists briefly before the heart emerges, dominated by petrichor and crushed leaves that evoke damp stone and wet earth. Sage and myrrh introduce a quiet herbalism, preventing the middle stage from feeling purely geological. Mineral notes thread through this entire phase, maintaining a sense of deep, underground pressure. As the heart fades, the drydown reveals itself through vetiver and java vetiver, smoky and root-like, anchoring the scent in dark, subterranean earth. Carrot seed and galbanum add a final bitter-green accent, while patchouli and amyris leave a muted, woodsy residue that persists for hours.
Cultural impact
Since its 2022 debut, Empty Wishes Well has developed a reputation for dividing opinion, the same way a beautiful photograph of ruins might. On fragrance platforms, wearers describe it as capturing melancholy with unusual precision: not sadness but the smell of somewhere remembered that no longer exists. The self-taught approach means unconventional combinations arrive without the reverence for classical structure that often neutralizes interesting materials. What emerges instead is a perfume that smells like it remembers something the wearer can't name.
