Quick answers
History
Salome was launched in 2015 by Papillon Artisan Perfumes, the British artisan house founded in 2011 in Hampshire (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 catalog'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.
The composition is built around an unusually dense animalic accord, woven into a floral heart of jasmine and Turkish rose. Castoreum and hyraceum sit in that heart with cumin, tobacco and hay, and oakmoss anchors the base in an animalic chypre construction. Salome is a deliberate revival of the animalic register that mainstream perfumery had largely abandoned after the IFRA restrictions of the 2000s.
The international reception was immediate within the niche community. Salome became one of the most discussed artisan releases of the mid 2010s 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 as an eau de parfum, 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 Hampshire, a positioning that distinguishes it from the larger niche brands relying on third-party laboratories. Salome remains the Liz Moores signature best known internationally.
Fragrance notes
Liz Moores builds a chypre floral animalic anchored by an openly animalic jasmine and Turkish rose heart and an oakmoss base.
Evolution on skin is progressive and pronounced. Bergamot and bitter orange lift the first fifteen to thirty minutes, the jasmine-rose-cumin-tobacco heart settles for two to four hours, and the oakmoss chypre base extends well past twelve hours. The animalic register of the heart marks the composition as a chypre rather than a clean floral.
Scent profile
The composition of Salome is organized around three technical pillars: a floral heart, a dense layered animalic accord woven into that heart and an oakmoss chypre base. Each pillar contributes a distinct facet of the signature and places the perfume among modern animalic chypres.
The honeyed white floral heart
The heart pairs jasmine and Turkish rose with cumin and carnation, alongside orange blossom, tobacco, hay and styrax. Turkish rose contributes a warm rosy facet that prevents the heart from reading as a soliflore.
The oakmoss chypre architecture
Oakmoss builds the chypre backbone. It provides the dry, slightly bitter green-woody facet historically associated with the chypre family and, with the bergamot of the opening, places Salome in continuity with the chypre tradition.
The animalic accord
The animalic accord layers materials that each carry a distinct facet. Castoreum brings a leathery warm note; hyraceum delivers a 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. This layering makes Salome a textbook example of the contemporary artisanal animalic revival.
Key characteristics
Cultural legacy
Salome holds a particular standing in the recent history of independent British perfumery. The fragrance is 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 stands 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 catalog (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.
Salome is a reference point for any conversation about modern animalic perfumery. The work continues to circulate widely in online niche communities and remains a gateway to the Papillon catalog.
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.
How to wear it
Seasonal fit
| Season | Fit | Critical notes |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | ★★★☆ | Good fit. |
| Summer | ★★☆☆ | Density can feel heavy. |
| Autumn | ★★★★ | Ideal season. |
| Winter | ★★★★ | Excellent. |
Context fit
| Setting | Fit | Usage recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Office | ★☆☆☆ | Not suited. |
| Dressed evening | ★★★★ | Reference context. |
| Intimate dinner | ★★★★ | Preferred context. |
| Gallery opening | ★★★★ | Excellent. |
| Sport | ★☆☆☆ | Not suited. |
| Travel | ★★★☆ | Exceptional longevity. |
Similar perfumes
Five perfumes share a kinship with Salomé through the floral chypre sub-family.
| Perfume | House · year | Why related |
|---|---|---|
| Bal à Versailles | Jean Desprez · 1962 | Animalic woody floral amber, a French classic. |
| Habanita | Molinard · 1921 | Earlier animalic tobacco floral amber. |
| Cuir Mauresque | Serge Lutens · 1996 | Niche oriental leather composed by Christopher Sheldrake. |
| Bois d’Ascèse | Naomi Goodsir · 2012 | Niche smoky amber woody composed by Julien Rasquinet; the same artisan school. |
| Putain des Palaces | État Libre d’Orange · 2006 | Provocative niche animalic floral, a shared transgressive reading. |
Frequently asked questions
See also
Sources
- Papillon Artisan Perfumes: official product page for Salome (accessed 23 May 2026)
- Persolaise: Salome feature and ongoing British artisan coverage (accessed 23 May 2026)
- Bois de Jasmin: Victoria Frolova review of Salome (accessed 23 May 2026)
- Now Smell This: Salome feature and Papillon coverage (accessed 23 May 2026)
- Kafkaesque: longevity and sillage reading