A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW | YULE BOTANICAL PERFUME OIL

"The light will return. Until then, I’ve left one on for you." -Iolanta Mazan founder of VIOLA

I love that late hour in winter when the lights come on, one house at a time. I find myself thinking about how many different lives are unfolding on the same little street, how every household has its own story and its own way of coming home. I wanted to make a perfume for that feeling.

I began with the evergreen bough brought indoors at Yule. On the longest night, there’s something tender about carrying a branch that has kept its green into the house. Pine, balsam fir, and juniper berry hold the scent it leaves on your fingers. Saffron, nutmeg, and winter spices give it the first warmth of the room. Beneath them, Virginia cedarwood, Gandhi root, oud, and resins smell to me like old wood that has been warming all evening.

I added real butter CO₂ extract for the smell of baking that reaches you in the hallway before you’ve even taken off your coat. It settles into the vanilla and sandalwood. That’s when I could finally imagine someone prepping in the kitchen.

Wear it when the dark comes early and you want a little warmth of your own. Or give it to the person you’d put the kettle on for at any hour.