Six months after its January 2021 launch, minimalist makeup and skincare brand Merit decided it needed a fragrance. “It wasn’t a very logical business move,” admits chief marketing officer Aila Morin with a laugh. “But we saw a white space. Frankly, there weren’t a lot of fragrances speaking to women in our age group, so we started concepting the Merit scent.”
Morin describes the fragrance landscape at the time as either “very gourmand” scents targeting Gen Z, or linear, single-story fragrances that “smelled the exact same when you first sprayed them and eight hours later.” Neither fit the profile of the Merit woman, whom Morin describes as a woman in her 30s or 40s seeking something thoughtful and vintage-inspired, but with a modern edge.
Three years later, after almost abandoning the project multiple times, Retrospect L’extrait de Parfum is finally here. But before diving into the present launch, we must rewind to 2022, when Morin and her team nearly scrapped the yet-unnamed scent. Then came a meeting with French perfumer Fanny Bal.
While the fragrance industry’s consumers are mostly women, the noses creating the product are surprisingly a small group of men. Morin found the meeting with Bal refreshing, not only because “we had a lot of the same references”, but also because Bal was the exact demographic the scent was intended for. “We created 200 different versions of the fragrance before we settled on the one in the bottle,” Bal shares of Retrospect. “But I have to say, we’re not too far from the original idea.”
The final, and presumably first, fragrance boasts those vintage notes you’ll recognize oh so well: vanilla, jasmine, and rose. However, instead of replicating the exact notes used in your grandmother’s perfume, Bal and Morin opted for different varietals or synthetics to give a modern and fresh approach. Another vintage element is the scent’s evolution throughout the day.
“It opens quite soft and fresh,” says Bal. “Like what you would want in the morning. By midday, when you are at work, it’s hitting the floral notes and is more traditional. Then, by evening, it’s turned sexy, with a little moss, a little musk, a little vanilla, a little wood.”
When Morin and Merit founder Katherine Power realized that Retrospect perfectly echoed a modern woman’s day, they knew they had a winner. “We realised it could really live with you over the course of the day and felt right in all these different situations,” Morin says. “Nobody wants to smell sexy dropping their kids off at school, but they do at home in the evening with their partner after the kids are asleep. Women have to code switch into so many situations in a day, and this scent really moves with you.”
