In From The Cold

In From the Cold recalls the final years of the Cold War through the memories of a young girl living briefly between two worlds. Black tea steams in Soviet kitchens. Cedar desks hold secrets. Winter air drifts through apartment courtyards where children meet despite the divisions of history. Across a snowy courtyard lives another girl whose father, like her own, is a physicist working in the shadow of forces neither fully understands. Governments change. Walls fall. Flags disappear. Decades later, only fragments remain: the scent of tea, footprints in snow, and the memory of a friendship that quietly survived an age of suspicion. Of the girl herself, little remains. Not even a surname. Only the certainty that they would meet again.

Fragrance Notes and Ingredients

Top Notes: Snow, Tunisian Spearmint, Black Tea, Hyssop

Heart Notes: Tuberose, Old Books, Karo-Karounde, Buttered Toast, Steam Accord

Base Notes: Dartanol, Cedar, Norlimbanol, Opoponax, Muscenone, Rice Pudding

Stone Cap : 100% Citrine 

Inspiration

In From the Cold

The Cold War was ending, though almost nobody knew it.

The newspapers still spoke of rival systems, rival armies, and rival futures. Physicists and generals on both sides of the world continued their calculations, preparing for possibilities they hoped would never come to pass. Somewhere between those calculations and the headlines, I arrived in the Soviet Union with my father.

He was a physicist. As a child, I understood little about his work. I knew only that adults lowered their voices when discussing it. Questions often went unanswered. There were places he went that I never saw and conversations that stopped when children entered the room.

Across a snow-covered courtyard lived another family. Their daughter appeared one winter morning, watching me with the same curiosity I felt toward her. Our fathers worked in the same profession, though for nations that had spent decades preparing for conflict with one another.

The adults inherited the rivalry.

We inherited the courtyard.

Soon we were exchanging books, drawings, and stories. We spoke about music, school, and the futures we imagined for ourselves. Politics belonged to grown-ups. We were far more interested in the mysteries of each other's worlds.

Sometimes I visited her family's apartment. The rooms smelled of black tea and old books. Steam gathered on the windows while the adults talked quietly in the kitchen. Looking back, I suspect those conversations carried the weight of history. At the time, they sounded like ordinary life.

Our fathers occasionally sat together at the same table. Years later I realized how remarkable that was. Both were physicists. Both carried responsibilities they could never fully discuss. Both devoted their lives to preventing a future they feared.

Then, almost overnight, the world changed.

Governments fell. Flags disappeared. Borders shifted. The Soviet Union itself dissolved into history.

The adults called it geopolitics.

To me, it felt more like losing a neighborhood.

The years carried us in different directions. Letters stopped arriving. Addresses changed. The friendship gradually became a memory.

Yet certain things remained.

The scent of tea rising from a kitchen.

Snow falling beneath streetlights.

A notebook passed between two children who had inherited a rivalry neither had chosen.

Decades later, I returned. Some buildings remained. Others had vanished. The certainty that once defined that world was gone. Walking through the familiar streets, I searched for traces of the place I remembered and the people who had once filled it.

I never found her.

Standing there, I realized that the Cold War was not only a story of espionage, ideology, and nuclear deterrence. It was also a story of ordinary people living quietly in its shadow—people who, despite everything, often had more in common than they knew.

The snow began falling again.

For a moment, the years seemed to collapse into one another. I could almost see her standing across the courtyard, waiting.

What remains are fragments. 

Only the steam rising from a teacup against a winter window.

Only the sound of snow beneath our boots.

Only the certainty that somehow, we would meet again.

Details

19% - Extrait de Parfume

50 ml 

15 ml (Travel Size available)

**Safety & Transparency:**  
We provide Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for all our fragrances in accordance with international regulatory standards. Each perfume is formulated in compliance with the safety guidelines of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA). All allergenic components subject to EU disclosure requirements are clearly listed on our product labels. [Click here to view the SDS for this fragrance.]