During my visit to Iceland last month, the perfumed souvenir I chose from the inimitable perfumery Fischersund was No. 101, named after the postal code for downtown Reykjavík.

Per the Fischersund website, No. 101 is “bottling the ethereal, fresh green scent of the herbaceous backyards of Reykjavík. The short summers in this Nordic country are made longer by the 24 hours of light. Soaking up the 4 AM rays of radiant sunshine while the smells and sounds of the season breathe life into the heart of the city. And as soon as people fall in love with the warm weather, summer quickly fades to winter’s frozen grasp.”

No. 101 eau de parfum was created by Jónsi and launched in 2022, accompanied by its own song, Bakgarðar, or “Backyards,” “a whimsical song composed by Jónsi, Sin Fang and Kjartan Holm that interprets the scent.” I haven’t been able to find the lyrics or translation, but I trust in the capacity of Fischersund and friends to be whimsical, given the scene set by the scent poem for No. 101:

Weathered garden chairs stacked against the wall
A flower pot filled with rain and cigarette butts
sits on the uprooted pavement now swallowed by chervil
Echoes of a nearby party
Fingers digging up sorrel and dandelions
Freshly fallen snow
On a forgotten trampoline
Black currants fall from bare branches, one by one

I find the poem to be spot-on in describing the feel of the perfume. Notes are chervil, Arctic angelica, black currant, withered grass, bergamot, cottonwood, poplar pine, red sorrel, and whiff of smoke.

The tactile experience of unwrapping the bottle from its specially designed bandanna is uniquely satisfying, especially as a change from cellophane and cardboard boxes. The bandanna features illustrations of elements of the perfume and frames the scent poem around the edges. The poem is also printed on a small card included in the package.

The sleek bottle design is attractive in a minimalist way, with the all-black, glossy-on-matte style that creates a contrast in texture when running a thumb over the surface.

Even after a few wears, it’s a bit hard for me to describe No. 101 in my own words, because my liking of it was really intuitive rather than objective. That in itself is a rare experience for me, which happened with most of my top favorite perfumes and more in the early days of my exploration. I have sampled a lot by now, and even recently, and not felt this with a perfume for a while.

No. 101 is the unfamiliar sum of familiar parts, and thus creates a perfume that truly feels different, as something I have not smelled anything like before.

It opens fresh and green in the way of wild, small plants, whose physical fuzziness translates quite literally into their scent. Quickly, a musky note fills the airiness—is it coming from the plants themselves? Smoky and rubbery fumes, as well as a chemical note of paint, also punctuate the airy-musky canvas, and my mind is filled with images of tire swings and stacks of tires in an untended garden with dry grass.

The cigarette-butts portion of the story is quite prominent, but fortunately not problematic. I’m having fun guessing at some of the ingredients—surely there’s galbanum providing that bitter-green edge? Isobutyl quinoline for the smoky pungency? Stemone for the grass that’s being crushed under the edge of a plastic chair?

If I sniff at my clothes while wearing No. 101, I get more of the sharp notes, with a very mild hint of incense in the background. Otherwise, a soft aura wafts at my nose, a creamy, fruity note I interpret as fig. It also appears like an “after-smell,” on the exhale.

No. 101 smells like spring to me—the plants are opening up, but still hesitant, and the remnants of winter haven’t yet been cleaned up. I haven’t visited Iceland during the summer, but can imagine being in one of these backyards on a lazy afternoon (maybe not at 4 AM… although the midnight sun does wonders on the perception of time!)