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Portland perfume house Imaginary Authors has formally entered the film fragrance market.
Movie-inspired perfumes are hardly new. Heretic Parfum had that viral Nosferatu-scented line. The Berlin brand Moth and Rabbit does Smell-o-Rama showings at the Tomorrow Theater through Fumerie Parfumerie. Even Imaginary Authors’ A Little Secret, a cherry pie–centered perfume released last April, unofficially channels Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me through its Black Lodge–inspired bottle art. But the local perfumery’s newest fragrance, Impassable Wilderness, is an official collaboration with Laika Studios to promote its forthcoming adaptation of Wildwood, Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis’ Portland-set urban fantasy children’s book series.
Impassable Wilderness, named for the Forest Park–inspired woodland where Wildwood is mostly set, is a unisex woody perfume that IA creative director Ashod Simonian has said was inspired partly by his time housesitting for Meloy and Ellis in Forest Park. Its bottle art departs from IA’s typically collage aesthetic, using a promotional image from Laika’s original Wildwood announcement in 2021.
“We were drawn to both the image’s mysterious vibe and its painterly quality which differs significantly from the stop-motion animation look Laika is known for,” Simonian told WW via email.
Released on Sept. 30 ahead of the movie’s Oct. 23 premiere, Impassable Wilderness is intended to enhance viewers’ Wildwood watch parties and movie theater trips. Its scent profile is notes of Scotch pine, resurrection fern, red cedar, oakmoss, petrichor, and “the Ancient Grove.” The resulting mix of natural and fantasy notes gives the impression of walking through an idyllic Forest Park—not the one currently swarming with box-elder bugs fleeing winter, but the one where nostrils fill with a pleasant mist hanging over the Wildwood Trail that’s neither cold nor damp.
Marketed as a rainforest petrichor perfume—petrichor being a now-trendy range of regionally specific mineralic smells of wet earth after rainfall—Impassable Wilderness also recalls a cathedral of trees. Churchlike smells are, like petrichor, trendy not just for nostalgia or gothic appeal. Some people find churchy smells like wood resins and sacred incense to be deliciously forbidden. Cedar is also in sexy colognes like Le Labo’s Santal 33, the fuckboy cult classic of the past 15 years.
It’s nobody’s fault if they have a mature response to a perfume made for a kids’ movie. Cedar grows naturally in Forest Park, so IA didn’t stray far from real-world trailheads. A little goes a long way (helpful in this economy). Spray responsibly. Anyone who wants to experience Impassable Wilderness before buying can attend Fumerie Parfumerie’s 10th anniversary party on Sunday, Oct. 25, meet Simonian and IA nose Josh Meyer, and sample it in person.
SNIFF: Tenth anniversary and Impassable Wilderness release party at Fumerie Parfumerie, 3584 SE Division St., fumerie.com. 4:30–7 pm Sunday, Oct. 25. Free.
