NOSU Parfums Been Trying To Meet You

NOSU Been Trying To Meet You, Hides and Sain No More via Instagram, photo by @ninajoyclose

A direct collaboration between an artist and a perfumer, NOSU’S overarching, dual front concept makes a whole lot of sense to me. The boutique British brand is a collaboration between an artist, Lucy Webster and a self-taught perfumer Jacob Grainger who work together and create visual and olfactory worlds that complement each other. It’s a meshing of mediums that’s already been proven to work – most notably by Olfactive Studio, whose perfumes are themselves interpretations of photographs rather than conceptual briefs – but in this case, Grainger’s abstract, textural pieces come after, to illustrate the perfume’s themes vividly.

Lucy Webster’s artistic interpretation and Hides bottle shot, used courtesy of the brand

For example, NOSU Hides is inspired by observing wildlife from the relative anonymity and perpetual stillness of a hide. As such it smells like nature unfiltered: all violet leaf, animalics and deadened musty wooden corners. It’s a raw depiction of greenery engulfing a wooden structure whilst the decay of last year’s leaves mulches into the earth at your feet. Yet Grainger’s art reframes it through a more chemical prism, presenting it as a blown-out map, depicting continents of spectral mosses and greenery.

Lucy Webster’s artistic interpretation and NOSU of Sain No More and used courtesy of the brand

With its roots firmly in the Scottish Hogmany tradition of ‘saining’, or cleansing one’s living space with juniper smoke to bring in the new year, Sain No More thankfully fuses that oft favoured note of artistic perfumers: cade, in a tender way, infusing the perfume with a gentle smokiness rather than the maligned barbecued bacon facet that comes through at a higher dosing. Honestly, it’s a material I often find myself recoiling from when I see it listed, but in Sain No More you get the intoxicating, just extinguished incense smell teamed with the uplift of sage and juniper. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the aroma of burning raw wood incense.

Lucy Webster’s artistic interpretation and Been Trying To Meet You used courtesy of the brand

For me, the highlight of the brand’s debut trio is NOSU Been Trying To Meet You, a bright and summery musing on wildflower gardens, rolled up hay bales and sun dried flowers. It’s immediately apparent that there’s an intended contrast of fresh blossoms and dried grasses; of pepper(s), lavandin, mandarin and immortelle flowers. It’s used to create the feel of dormant hay fields, their soil scorching under the unseasonably prevalent heat waves the UK is currently experiencing. Nosu Been Trying To Meet You is deft and turns out to be decidedly pillowy for a perfume whose tone is defined so much by the use of traditionally ‘dry’ smelling materials like bran and hay and immortelle. Underscoring the composition with ambrettolide and vetiverol gives it all a smoothness and a lightness of touch that perpetually lingers.

The thread that binds NOSU debut trio together, is a sense of raw, artistry and instinctive creation. Much like the imagery created in the wake of their sillage, these first NOSU releases aren’t hyper realist fragrances, they’re abstract, bold strokes, evocative stuff, made with a high percentage of natural raw materials. And it feels like that’s the stuff that really matters here, as if a good chunk of the work has been done at the evaluating stage, scouring for and sourcing exactly the right materials for Grainger’s chosen effect(s).

Notes: incense, juniper, bergamot, aldehydes, blue hemlock, cistus, sage, cedarwood, vetiver, juniper tar, amber

Disclaimer: a sample of NOSU perfumes were provided by the brand, opinions my own.

–Oli Marlow, Contributor

Thanks to the generosity of Jacob and NOSU we have a sample set of all three fragrances: NOSU Been Trying To Meet You, Hides, and Sain No More available in the UK only. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Oli’s review and that you live in the U.K. Draw closes 7/28/2025

This is our Privacy Policy

We announce the winners only on our site and on our Facebook page, so like ÇaFleureBon and use our blog feed… or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume

Like our Facebook page: Çafleurebon and use our blog feed for new updates and articles