Stilla
Svensk Parfym (2017)

Some people compare this to Eiderantler by JSP, but it lacks that leafy green ivy accord. Here, it’s mostly straight-up lavender, with just a hint of eucalyptus in the background—not enough to make it camphorous or minty. It really feels like rubbing fresh lavender buds between your fingers: pure, natural, and clean, with nothing else competing.

If you want a lavender fragrance, this could be it. If you’re looking for supporting notes to give it more depth, you might be disappointed. It’s linear and admittedly monotonous, but it delivers lavender in a way that’s neither bitter, harsh, nor overly synthetic. In fact, it makes you wonder if they simply diluted lavender essential oil.

That’s where my split feelings come in: it smells so close to lavender EO that you might ask, “Why not just wear the oil?” But EO can be too strong undiluted, whereas this does the work for you—wearable right out of the bottle, whether for daytime or even as a calming bedtime scent. Performance is moderate, and it’s versatile enough for all seasons. At 30 ml for $123 CAD / $89 USD, it feels like a reasonable and potentially bottle-worthy addition if you truly love lavender.

I'd like to first thank Svensk Parfym for the opportunity to test their first six fragrances.

Stilla opens on me as a lovely, authentic grey-purple lavender. Its gritty, aromatic earthiness, and its resinous sweetness are beautifully displayed in the front, while the squeaky clean, metallic aspects - the kind of interpretations of lavender that I struggle with, is nowhere to be found in Stilla.

The icing on the cake though, is a light touch of eucalyptus. It's finely tuned so that it will not sound the medicinal alarm, but enough to evoke the passing feeling of a cool breeze on an early morning,

About 1 hour in, the initial focus on the lavender starts to blur, as the dry woody base and a steamy, clean white musk permeate the lavender field like a morning fog. As the lavender gradually loses its herbal shimmer and becomes dehydrated, its hay-like dry aromaticness weaves seamlessly into the almost incense-like, grey-coloured dry woods.

Stilla then maintains this aromatic, incense-tinted dry woods and nebulous, silver clean musk for the remainder of the 9-hour longevity. At times, I almost crave for something to pop up, to add a bit of ripple to this tranquil lake of white musk with floating aromatic wood log. But at the same time, it does interprets "stillness" successfully. I get a moderate to soft sillage with Stilla.

After smelling all of the first six releases from Svensk Parfym, I find most of them focus on primarily one accord, but care is taken to showcase them in a vibrant way. Moreover, the transition from the opening to the base takes place smoothly and in an incremental manner, as if the camera gradually moves out of focus. Stilla incarnates this aesthetic perfectly, and this results to a relative linear yet naturalistic fragrance that is easy to appreciate without being boring.

What I appreciate the most in Stilla is its vivid lavender. Not only does it avoid the "masculine sports fragrance" cliché, but also refrains from being too clean and too sweet for my taste like Penhaligon's Lavandula and Chanel Jersey did. Its light touch of the usually polarising eucalyptus is also interesting. I believe Stilla manages to present this note in an approachable way without taking away its personality. I would definitely recommend it to those who are on a lavender quest, or to those who would like a clean aromatic skin scent.