Utopia

One tree keeps the land alive, and the people there revere it.

A commune on the edge of a pristine lake, in a world that is not this one. Rolling green hills come up out of the water with smooth stone buildings dotted through them, and at the centre stands a tree that dwarfs all of it. Technology and nature are in balance here. Jean Giraud's artwork, under the name Moebius, is the starting point.

Geranium cuts across the hills, green and faintly bitter. Fresh apples make the thing edible. Oud is the darkest material in it and the most resinous. Clean water and green plants thin the air until it is breathable rather than heavy.

Hayden Grossman formulates every fragrance in the line, illustrates it, designs it and labels it, working out of a studio in an Oregon apartment. The route in was visual art and illustration. Each batch is mixed, bottled, labeled and assembled by hand, and the operation is exactly as small as that sounds. The illustration on the bottle and the liquid inside it are the same person's work.

Releases come with writing of their own, and one of them runs as short fiction with dialogue in it. The strength is decided per release rather than set to a house standard. Limited editions come in small batches, and past ones get re-released. The full ingredient list is published, down to the trade names of the synthetics, and a material that is not vegan is declared on the page it belongs to.