kismet olfactive / eau de parfum - vetiver supreme
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Vetiver is a grass. A root pulled from the earth—difficult to harvest, humble in origin, and yet one of perfumery's most revered materials. Which raises a question worth sitting with: what gives anything its perceived value?
Why is gold precious? Why does rose mean love? Some things accumulate meaning through history and repetition until the association feels like fact. Vetiver is one of those examples. Earthy and difficult, and inexplicably elevated.
Vetiver Supreme began not as an emotional pursuit, but an intellectual one. An attempt to understand the material on its own terms—an obsession over what gives anything that je ne sais quoi, that “certain something.”
The formula is built around both Haitian & Indonesian vetiver, intentionally overdosed at an unusually high concentration by any standard in modern perfumery. While opening notes of clove and cardamom settle into a heart of orris root, tonka bean, and ambroxan, the vetiver deepens throughout—dry, smoky, faintly leathery—wearing close to the skin long after everything else has settled.
Vetiver Supreme is a true study in a single material, pushed to its fullest expression.
Note: Kismet fragrances are made by hand in small batches, are unfiltered, and contain a high concentration of natural raw materials—therefore, some cloudiness or sediment may occur.
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Kismet Olfactive is a New York City-based independent fragrance studio founded by bohemian-perfumer Shabnam Tavakol. Born and raised in California, Shabnam—Farsi for “morning dew” — is the daughter of Iranian-immigrant parents who escaped the violent 1979 Revolution in Iran, relocating to the U.S. by way of hard-won efforts and a string of good fortune. Recognizing this fortuitous past, Kismet — from the Persian qismat, meaning “fate,” or, “what is meant to be” — translates the serendipitous moments that make up our lives into wearable scents.
Shabnam studied fragrance creation at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery in South France. After graduating, she worked professionally in Paris and New York City, yet soon grew disappointed by the perfume industry’s rigid conformity, privileging corporate hierarchy, political correctness, and a hard line between ‘natural perfumery’ and ‘fine fragrance’ — large-fragrance-house perfumers seemed disconnected from clientele, pressured to formulate from marketing briefs, consumer-projections, pie charts, analytics. Seeking an alternative, Shabnam founded Kismet to establish a more intimate, inclusive, and ‘naturals’-integrative approach to fine fragrance creation.
