Salome

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Story

Salome was launched in 2015 by Papillon Artisan Perfumes, the British artisan house founded in 2014 in Dorset (United Kingdom) by Liz Moores. It followed the house's three founding releases of June 2014, Anubis, Tobacco Rose and Angelique, and quickly became the catalogue's most talked-about work: opulent materials, hand-finished production and an open embrace of animalic notes.

The narrative inspiration is explicitly literary. The title refers to the biblical figure of Salome, daughter of Herodias, who asked for the head of John the Baptist after dancing for Herod Antipas. The character was revisited by Oscar Wilde in his 1891 play Salome and by Richard Strauss in his 1905 opera, both of which framed her as a figure of dangerous seduction. Liz Moores has cited that lineage when describing the deliberately troubling animalic register of the composition (Persolaise feature, 2015; Bois de Jasmin review by Victoria Frolova, 2015).

The composition is built around an unusually dense animalic accord, layered under a honeyed white floral heart of jasmine and Moroccan rose. Castoreum, civet, costus, hyraceum and oakmoss anchor the base, in a construction English-language critics consistently describe as an animalic chypre. Persolaise, Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This converge in framing Salome as a deliberate revival of the animalic register that mainstream perfumery had largely abandoned after the IFRA restrictions of the 2000s (Persolaise review, 2015; Bois de Jasmin review, 2015; Now Smell This feature, 2015).

The international reception was immediate within the niche community. Salome became one of the most discussed artisan releases of the mid 2010s in community databases and rapidly took on cult status among readers seeking a contemporary animalic. Distribution remains deliberately restricted, anchored on the official Papillon site and a small network of partner niche perfumeries. The fragrance is still produced in 2026 in its original eau de parfum formulation, with a more concentrated extrait version added in 2018.

Papillon Artisan Perfumes belongs to the wider British artisan wave that emerged in the early 2010s and reframed independent British perfumery as a hub for animalic, opulent compositions. The house operates on a small, largely family-run footprint and continues to compose each perfume in Dorset, a positioning that distinguishes it from the larger niche brands relying on third-party laboratories. Salome remains the most cited Liz Moores signature internationally and the work most commonly used to introduce new readers to the Papillon catalogue (Now Smell This feature 2015).

Olfactory pyramid

The pyramid below mirrors the note list published by Papillon Artisan Perfumes on the official Salome product page. Liz Moores builds a chypre floral animalic anchored by a jasmine and Turkish rose heart and an openly animalic base.

Evolution on skin is progressive and pronounced. Bergamot and cumin lift the first fifteen to thirty minutes, the jasmine-rose-tobacco heart settles for two to four hours, and the animalic chypre base extends well past twelve hours. The animalic register is audible from the first spray, marking the composition as a chypre rather than a clean floral.

Composition

The composition of Salome is organized around three technical pillars: a honeyed white floral heart, a documented oakmoss chypre architecture and a dense layered animalic accord in the base. Each pillar contributes a distinct facet of the signature and explains why the perfume is consistently classified as a modern animalic chypre by English-language references.

The honeyed white floral heart

The heart pairs jasmine and Moroccan rose with a generous dose of honey. Honey in perfumery is a sweet, faintly waxy and slightly animalic material that bridges floral and animalic registers; in Salome it reinforces the indolic character of the jasmine and adds a sticky, skin-close texture. Moroccan rose contributes a warm rosy facet that prevents the heart from reading as a soliflore.

The oakmoss chypre architecture

Oakmoss and vetiver build the chypre backbone. Oakmoss provides the dry, slightly bitter green-woody facet historically associated with the chypre family; vetiver reinforces the earthy depth. The pairing places Salome in continuity with the chypre tradition, while the absence of citrus bergamot in the opening keeps the composition rooted in animalic floral rather than classical chypre.

The animalic accord

The animalic accord layers four materials that each carry a distinct facet. Castoreum brings a leathery warm note; civet adds a dense, faintly fecal smoothness; costus contributes a warm, hair-like character; hyraceum delivers a documented urinous-leathery depth. Hyraceum, the fossilized rock-hardened excretions of the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), is a natural and legally traded animalic material occasionally used in artisanal perfumery for its unusual complexity. The layering of these four materials is what gives Salome its reputation as a textbook example of the contemporary artisanal animalic revival (Bois de Jasmin review, 2015; Persolaise review, 2015).

Key characteristics

Cultural legacy

Salome holds a particular standing in the recent history of independent British perfumery. The fragrance is widely credited as one of the defining artisan releases of the mid 2010s, a moment when British perfumery reclaimed visibility through small independent houses rather than through legacy luxury brands. Liz Moores is consistently named alongside Sarah McCartney (4160 Tuesdays), Angela Flanders and Lyn Harris as a figure of that renewal.

Salome is not a perfume that wants to be liked. It owns the animalic, the indolic, the troubling. It is everything but a polite floral.

The composition's cultural status also rests on its narrative anchoring. The biblical Salome, rewritten by Oscar Wilde and Richard Strauss as a figure of dangerous seduction, gives the perfume a literary framework that resonates with the wider Papillon catalogue (Anubis, Tobacco Rose, Angelique, Dryad). That coherence has helped position the house as one of the most distinctive narrative-driven projects in the contemporary independent British scene.

Critically, Salome is the most cited Liz Moores signature in English-language fragrance writing. Persolaise, Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This all returned to the composition across multiple features between 2015 and 2020, treating it as a reference point for any conversation about modern animalic perfumery. The work continues to circulate widely in online niche communities and remains the gateway most often recommended to new Papillon readers (Persolaise multi-year features).

When and where to wear

Salome, within the contemporary artisanal niche current, is known as a radical, identity-defining fragrance. Its animalic-floral signature makes it a recognizable personal scent.

Wear references

Seasonal fit

Context fit

Frequently asked questions

See also