Papillon Perfumery's Hera

Papillon Perfumery inspires words to be written and spoken, yet having only discovered the brand in the last year, I’m fearful of not doing justice to its creations. I’ve lived alongside Guerlain and Chanel and L’Artisan and Frederic Malle for half of my life so far, so have had time to – well, not understand, exactly, because there is so much about perfume I will never understand – but certainly familiarize myself with what they do.

Finding Papillon reminds me of my early days with the houses mentioned above, in the best possible way. My nose was un-tuned back then, to find art within a smell. Oh, I’d understood from the feelings that arose when smelling old familiar things that fragrance could be powerful… but art? No, I had not known that.

Of course, this epiphany is one reason people continue to become obsessed with fragrance: it’s like a lightbulb switching on, but only some people are in the light. Though people are learning in their droves that fragrance deserves the recognition of other art-forms, still most of the people in our daily lives don’t yet get it. They’re in the dark about it.

Finding Papillon feels a bit like coming into the light once again. Had I forgotten, with all the advertising and the TikTok videos that perfume could be an artform? I don’t think so. But I think there is something special about Papillon that demands reverence and reflection. Liz Moores, the parfumer, could herself be a goddess of the forest, of fertility and of glamour, which gives her brand – if it’s not too crass to call it that – an added superpower. She’s a force of nature, and when you wear her creations… well, might some of that magic rub off?

I’m not sure I can do justice to the fragrances in Liz’s stable having not spent enough time with them yet (meaning months not years), but I’ll try, because like I said, Papillon’s perfumes inspire words…

Radiant Hera

This release, utterly radiant in a heatwave (which is why I’m choosing now to write about it) feels like even more of a gift to the perfume-buying public since it was created lovingly for Liz Moore’s oldest daughter’s wedding. One can be in no doubt, then, that it was designed with the most care and attention, and goodness, it shows.

Without wanting to bestow too many grandiose notions on the parfumer, I do feel like Liz Moores is a bit like one of the Brontë sisters, who manifested powerful, worldly masterpieces that well surpassed their years and experience as though they were catching and channelling higher art on the wind. At least one other of my favourite parfumers (David Moltz of DS & Durga) is self-taught, so I realise a decade of traditional perfume schooling is not completely essential if the creator is committed and obsessed enough, but Papillon’s creations are that good, they could be missing masterpieces from Guerlain or Caron.

On my skin, Hera opens with comforting heliotrope and ylang ylang, under which a boozy May rose blooms. There’s something about this opening that makes me think of a champagne brunch, with the rose adding an almost cocktail-like element. There’s the bright champagne flute ‘clink’ of celebration in the opening, which recedes as solar white-yellow light blanches things out to abstraction. For a long while, Hera becomes the benevolent sun – jasmine, orange blossom, narcissus – with the orris and musk grounding things.

Hera (on my skin, in warm weather) is sherbetty, happy-inducing and vintage-smelling. I feel like it also celebrates the first post-pandemic rays of sun, making it belong as much to ‘now’ as it does draw from the past.

A little story: I first tried this in Les Senteurs, in London. It was one of those days I sprayed almost everything in the store on either myself or a card. There was one fragrance I kept returning to, but with all the noise, neither myself nor the sales professional could remember what it was. So, I had to go back one by one through what I’d sprayed and finally identified it as Hera - it took at least an hour, it seemed. This was earlier in the year, and in colder weather my skin brought out more of the iris and stemminess – but still warm and yellow-hued. It called me back from its little corner of the store even among all those other bottles.

This is a perfume to keep you company. I have fragrances like that – where wearing them feels like being in the company of a friend or mentor. All of Papillon Perfumery’s perfumes that I’ve tried have an effect of feeling like a talisman in your pocket. I’m still deciding which are my favourites but Bengale Rouge, Salome and Tobacco Rose are all contenders as I continue to learn about this compelling perfume house.

Hera is available direct from Papillon Perfumery or Les Senteurs for £260 in extrait.

A little additional note: often Liz’s daughter, for who Hera was created, has written poems about her mother’s fragrances and they are excellent reads!