An unconventional approach to botanicals, from herbs to mushrooms, tomatoes to oregano, is the defining feature of Loewe’s extensive range of perfumes and home fragrances, a signature that is ‘part-Victorian botanical garden [and] part-apothecary, a mix is both scientific and sentimental,’ as the brand’s former creative director Jonathan Anderson told us back in 2020. Now under the stewardship of Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Loewe is still building off this unique approach to fragrances, most recently with Aire Sutileza Elixir Eau de Parfum.
Like a botanist with his greenhouse, Loewe categorizes its extensive range of its fragrances within families that possess certain unifying, natural traits. The Agua family, for instance, is inspired by light refracting off flowing water. The Solo family contains scents that harmonize opposites, like night and day are harmonised during sunset, while 001 is a family of fragrances inspired by the early morning. Aire Sutileza Elixir is part of the Aire family which – as the name suggests – draws inspiration from the revitalising, cleansing feeling of a fresh breeze. It is also part of the Elixir family, a new family within the fragrance families that reinterprets classic fragrances from the portfolio with a high concentration of essential oils to create fragrances far more potent than their predecessors.
The original Aire Sutileza launched in 2017 with a blend of pear top notes, middle notes of creamy white flowers like lily-of-the-valley and magnolia, and a musk base. The result is one of the brand's most popular fragrances, a light, slightly sweet scent that smells almost like a cloud, bottled. The new interpretation retains the pear notes, while turning up the dial on its floral and musky qualities. Bergamot and lemon give it that fresh air quality, while the addition of Spanish rockrose, Loewe perfume’s signature accord, lends it a complex, resinous quality.
‘With this new Elixir, I wanted to amplify the luminosity of Aire Sutileza by illuminating its fruity facets with fleur d’oranger, creating a more radiant and blooming opening,’ in-house perfumer Nuria Cruelles tells Wallpaper*. ‘In contrast, soft musks bring warmth, comfort and a sense of elevation. The result is a fragrance that feels both luminous and enveloping, a more refined and sophisticated expression of Aire Sutileza.’
It comes in the block-shaped glass flask that is a signature of the Loewe fragrances, but with a translucent gradient of leaf green to echo the fresh, nature-influenced quality of the fragrance itself. It’s a launch that signals a continuation of defining features of the line that have made it a crowd favourite, but imbued with a new energy to keep it interesting moving forward.