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Six months after launching in January 2021, the brains behind minimalist makeup and skin brand Merit decided the brand needed a fragrance. “It wasn’t a very logical business move,” chief marketing officer Aila Morin says with a laugh. “But we saw a white space. Frankly, there weren’t a lot of fragrances speaking to women in our age group, so we started concepting the Merit scent.”
Morin describes the fragrance landscape at the time as either “very gourmand” scents that targeted Gen Z or linear, single-story fragrances that “smelled the exact same when you first sprayed them and eight hours later.” Neither of these was the Merit woman, whom the CMO describes as a woman in her 30s or 40s looking for something thoughtful and vintage inspired but with a modern edge. Three years later, after almost abandoning the project more than a few times, Retrospect Extrait de Parfum is finally here.
But before we dive into the present launch, we have to rewind to 2022, when Morin and her team almost abandoned the yet-unnamed scent. And then came a meeting with French perfumer Fanny Bal. While the fragrance industry’s consumers are mostly people who identify as women, the noses making the product are—somewhat surprisingly—a small group of men. Morin found the meeting with Bal refreshing, not only because “we had a lot of the same references” but also because she was the exact demographic the scent was intended for.
“We created 200 different versions of the fragrance before we settled on the one in the bottle,” Bal shares of Retrospect. “But I have to say, we’re not too far from the original idea.” The final—and presumably, first—juice has those vintage notes you’ll recognize oh so well: vanilla, jasmine, and rose, but instead of pulling the exact notes used in your grandmother’s perfume, Bal and Morin opted for different varietals or synthetics to give a modern and fresh approach.
Another vintage element of the scent is that it evolves throughout the day. “It opens quite soft and fresh,” says Bal. “Like what you would want in the morning. By midday, when you are at work, it’s hitting the floral notes and is more traditional. Then, by evening, it’s turned sexy, with a little moss, a little musk, a little vanilla, a little wood.”
When Morin and Merit founder Katherine Power realized that it perfectly echoed a modern woman’s day, they knew the juice was right. “We realized it could really live with you over the course of the day and felt right in all these different situations,” Morin says. “Nobody wants to smell sexy dropping their kids off at school, but they do at home in the evening with their partner after the kids are asleep. Women have to code switch into so many situations in a day, and this scent really moves with you.”
Retrospect Extrait de Parfum is now available for preorder and will be available for purchase on October 22. In the meantime, shop more Merit Beauty below.
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