Byredo
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The rose arrives stripped of its usual plushness, almost grey-green in character, immediately compressed by bone-dry cedarwood that smells more like sawdust suspended in cold air than anything warm or resinous. There's a faint medicinal edge, astringent and clean, as if someone's crushed rose petals against freshly planed wood.
The Virginia cedar dominates completely now, its pencil-shaving character softened only marginally by the vetiver's earthy, slightly rooty quality emerging beneath. The rose has receded to a whisper, more memory than presence, whilst that synthetic accord creates an almost translucent halo around the wood – modern, precise, deliberately unnatural.
Skin musk and vetiver create a quiet, slightly smoky veil that sits close to the skin, retaining just enough cedar to remind you of the structure that's passed. It's warm but never cosy, clean but never soapy – a minimalist's idea of sensuality, all restraint and suggestion.
Super Cedar strips Byredo's usual opulent florals down to something far more architectural. This is rose refracted through a prism of dry, splintered Virginia cedar – not the smooth pencil shavings you might expect, but something closer to raw timber left to cure in a modernist studio. Jérôme Epinette has created an almost brutalist composition where the rose never blooms fully; instead, it hovers as a cool, slightly metallic presence, its natural sweetness sanded away by that relentless woody backbone. The synthetic accord here isn't trying to hide itself – there's a deliberate, almost industrial cleanliness to the construction that reads more Scandinavian design aesthetic than traditional perfumery.
What makes this compelling is the tension between the rose's inherent softness and the cedar's angular severity. The Haitian vetiver contributes an earthy, almost smoky undertone that keeps the composition from becoming too austere, whilst the musk provides just enough skin-like warmth to anchor it. This isn't a fragrance that courts approval; it's for those who appreciate restraint over exuberance, negative space over embellishment. You'll find this on architects, gallery directors, those who wear Acne Studios in monochrome palettes. It suits crisp autumn mornings, concrete interiors, the click of heels on polished floors. There's something deliberately anti-romantic here – a fragrance that respects boundaries, that doesn't reach out for you but waits to be noticed on its own exacting terms.
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3.9/5 (74)