Papillon Artisan Perfumes

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History of the house

Papillon Artisan Perfumes was founded in 2011 by Liz Moores, a British perfumer based in the New Forest (England, United Kingdom). Every fragrance is composed and blended by Liz Moores herself and made by hand in small batches in her studio. She has signed the entire catalog from the first releases onward, with no co-author and no recourse to an external composer.

The public launch took place in 2014 with an inaugural trio: Anubis, Angelique and Tobacco Rose. The three perfumes were received favorably by specialist fragrance criticism, particularly by the blogs Now Smell This, Bois de Jasmin, Kafkaesque and Persolaise, which highlighted the density of the natural raw materials and the coherence of a recognizable signature from the very first releases. A fourth perfume, Salome, followed in 2015 and rapidly became the most discussed composition of the catalog for its openly animalic character.

The house claims a perfumery built on a heavy use of classical raw materials, including rose, jasmine, oud, myrrh, frankincense, oakmoss, amber and synthetic civet, alongside vintage-coded animalic notes such as hyrax and castoreum. Liz Moores has cited pre-1990 chypres and orientals as editorial references in several interviews, and the writing of the house consciously echoes a European vintage tradition associated with Guerlain, Caron, Robert Piguet and Rochas. That avowed lineage distinguishes Papillon within the contemporary English-language niche landscape.

The house has remained structurally single-author. Liz Moores is the only perfumer, the only signatory, and the direct interface between the product and the buyer. The catalog has expanded slowly, one release at a time rather than in seasonal collections: Dryad in 2017, Bengale Rouge in 2019, Spell 125 in 2021, Hera in 2022 and Epona in 2024. Papillon sells directly to UK customers from its official site, papillonperfumery.co.uk, and elsewhere through a restricted network of niche specialist retailers.

Notable perfumes

The Papillon catalog brings together nine compositions signed by Liz Moores, from Anubis (2014) to Epona (2024). Eight of them are listed below.

Olfactory signature

Papillon practices an artisan perfumery that balances naturals and synthetics, built on the classical materials of the perfumer's palette: rose, jasmine, oud, myrrh, frankincense, oakmoss, amber, labdanum, tobacco, immortelle, hay, hyrax, synthetic civet and castoreum. Liz Moores works at eau de parfum concentration (Hera alone is a pure parfum), with dense compositions and long longevity, where the richness in absolutes and resins remains an immediate marker.

The house claims a lineage with vintage and classical perfumery: oakmoss chypres from before the stricter IFRA framework, resinous orientals in the Caron tradition, aldehydic florals from the Guerlain and Chanel decades. That historical inspiration translates into complete architectures, opening on bright top notes, structured by a floral or resinous heart, and held by an animalic or balsamic base. Salome (2015) has been compared by English-language critics to the animalic chypres of the 1970s and 1980s, and Tobacco Rose (2014) draws on the honeyed rose tobacco accords of mid-century European perfumery.

Three stylistic axes structure the catalog. The first is the animalic chypre axis, which reframes the classical chypre architecture around openly animalic materials, exemplified by Salome (2015). The second is the resinous smoky oriental axis, anchored by Anubis (2014) with its suede, myrrh, frankincense and saffron accord. The third is the rose-driven floral axis, illustrated by Tobacco Rose (2014) and later extended by Hera (2022) toward a white floral powdery reading.

The other signature marker is the editorial consistency of a single hand. Liz Moores signs every Papillon perfume, with no co-signature, no external composer and no expansion toward marketing-driven olfactory families. The catalog contains no clean musky woody composition designed for mass appeal. This unity of authorship gives the catalog an editorial readability that is rare in current independent niche perfumery.

An artisan perfume house written by a single perfumer, where each release openly claims an attachment to the European vintage tradition.

Key characteristics

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