Black Cat

A daring green assault: catnip and bergamot strike bright and bitter, bound by authentic black licorice—raw anise, not candy-shop sweetness.

That freshness doesn't stay polite for long; dark fruits slide in with shilajit and ebanol, bringing a thick, mineral warmth that feels like glowing resin and damp, barky wood rather than jam. As it settles, labdanum, Vietnamese oud, and civetone take over, turning the whole thing into a cozy, animalic amber that still carries a ghost of licorice and green around the edges—like a black cat stretching at the edge of a campfire, half-comfort, half-shadow.

If you love anise, resin, and animalic depth but still want something wearable and snug, this feels right for cold nights, dark novels, and anyone who likes their comfort with a little bite.

• James Nguyen

d.grayi is the work of James Nguyen, known also as Miju, a perfumer who came to scent as an adversary rather than a calling. A career spent around hair color and its chemicals left James allergic. Fragrance meant headaches and a throat swelling shut, and anything scented was avoided outright. Cosmetic chemistry, taken up as a hobby, brought the first turn: cosmetic raw materials that smelled unpleasant, and natural ingredients found to soften them.

Then came a dream, in which someone deeply important who had passed away returned and described a fragrance. It was not a scent so much as a complete story, vivid and pictured, and James woke and wrote down every detail. The quest to recreate it became the studio. Isolated aroma molecules, tried later, provoked nothing; the allergy had been to composition, not to any one material. James now builds olfactive stories unrestricted.