What does a shooting star smell like? Aesop’s new perfume finds out

Imagine a shooting star as it streaks across an inky night sky – twinkling, incandescent and ephemeral. Aesop, the luxury skincare brand, has attempted to capture that glowing essence in a bottle with its newest fragrance, Above Us, Steorra Eau de Parfum.

The fragrance, which is available for purchase 2 September 2025, is the result of a fascinating olfactory journey by frequent Aesop collaborator Céline Barel. The perfumer, who has created scents for brands including Loewe, Jil Sander, Jo Malone and more, was inspired by a visit to Aesop’s Collins Street store in Melbourne, where the ceiling glimmers softly, thanks to crushed amber bottles embedded into the plaster. ‘The whole ceiling is like stardust, but it's a very discrete and twinkling,’ Barel says.

The amber-coloured bottles got her thinking about the amber accord in perfumery, a foundational element of modern-day fragrances. Normally, an amber accord (not to be confused with ambergris, a substance produced by sperm whales, that’s been used historically in scent-making) is a comforting, powdery fragrance, with hints of vanilla.

‘How do we make another amber? How do we give it another life?’ Barel recalls asking herself. ‘I wanted to do things differently. And I wanted to go back to the core of the shooting star, the mineral aspect. There is this duality between something that used to shine high in the sky, but then fell to the ground.’

Barel sought to incrementally reduce the ambery accord to its very minimum by removing as much of the powdery elements as she could. In its place, she substituted richer, resiny notes, like cardamom and cinnamon. ‘We call it cinnamon bark essential, which comes from the first distillation of the cinnamon,’ Barel explains. ‘It gives this very twinkling, mouthwatering smell.’

The result, Above Us, Steorra Eau de Parfum (Steorra is Old English for ‘stars’), is sensual and intriguing. Like a racing comet, the fragrance first glimmers with a flash of bergamot, cardamom and Elemi, a resin from a tree found in the Philippines. Gradually, you get to the scent’s amber nucleus, augmented with the rich aroma of cypriol heart, and a resiny whiff of labdanum and frankincense. You’re left with deeper traces of these smells, with a comforting finish of warm vanilla.

Barel describes it as a skin-like fragrance, soft and carnal. ‘Fragrances on the market are extremely loud and in your face. This one is soft in a way that is very restrained,’ she says. ‘I think it's very addictive.’

For Aesop co-founder, Suzanne Santos, the collaboration marks another fruitful one with Barel. ‘There is something restful between the relationship at its core,’ she says. ‘It's a deep conversation.’

aesop.com