JULI

Biting into a ripe pear in the middle of a flowering garden.

An afternoon at the height of summer, the watering done. Light, air and nectar run into one another. Leaves let go of their green smell into warm air, fruit comes off the branch, and there is damp soil, crushed stem and the sparkle of a chilled drink in among the flowers.

The fruit stays translucent rather than syrupy. Pear and cassis blossom hang in the air more than they land, charged bright by pink pepper. May rose opens into the centre of it, cooled by violet leaf and cut across by an unexpected current of spearmint, so the flowers read as living rather than picked. As the brightness goes, iris root lays down a dry powder, softened by sandalwood and by the warm skin-like character of ambrette.

32.JULI was founded in Hamburg by sisters Juli Pätzold and Maria Magdalena Stachowiak, who hold two degrees in olfactory design between them and more than a decade of work behind them. The name belongs to the 32nd of July, a day that exists on no calendar. An architect and a designer by training, the two of them shape the object as closely as they shape the liquid.

Everything is made from plant-based materials alone. Essential oils, botanical extracts, resins, hydrolates and natural isolates are the whole vocabulary, and those materials are pushed a long way from their origins: latex, sun lotion, wet stone, crème brûlée. Each bottle is finished with a ceramic cap the house designed and makes individually by hand, so the marks left by its making stay visible on the object.