Sep 21

Sep 21 Ffern Autumn 23 Eau de Parfum Review

What is Ffern

Ffern is a natural perfume company based in Somerset, UK. Ffern creates fragrances that are organic, vegan and made from the highest quality, sustainably sourced, natural ingredients. Their main focus is batch making these artisan perfumes in a limited supply, selling only to those on their ledger. This minimizes production waste, but I also think it’s a bit of a marketing strategy. There’s something about the human psychology that makes us want something we can’t have. You will receive four unique fragrances a year, released at the equinox and solstice. Each bottle is $129, and includes a sample vial and free returns.

How to Join the Ffern Ledger

The ffern ledger, their list of customers who are guaranteed a bottle of perfume each season, seems to always have no space available. However, you can sign up on their waitlist, and you will be notified when a space is open. I signed up for the wait list about mid-August 2023, and about 2 weeks later was accepted into the ledger. I’m uncertain if I just got lucky in that people were voluntarily leaving the ledger, or perhaps they are increasing their production numbers. Either way, once I confirmed I would like to join the ledger, I was able to purchase the next seasonal perfume, which was Autumn 23. My perfume shipped on September 12, and I received the package in 7 days.

Autumn 23 Eau du Parfum Review

Every Ffern perfume is shipped in sustainable and biodegradable packaging. On the lid of the shipping box, there is a label with the season of the perfume, the perfume scent notes, and some information on the bottling process.

The inside of the shipping box contains the labelled perfume bottle, a sample perfume kit, and a pamphlet describing the inspiration, ingredients, and artwork on the back which can be used as a poster or decor.

The envelope containing the pamphlet feels like a wax paper. The packaging on everything is very thoughtful with a modern and minimal aesthetic.

From the pamplet, Ffern describes their inspiration and formulation of Autumn 23:

“A match flares; the fizz of sulphur burns out into beeswax, soft honey and smoke. In the grate last night’s embers gently smoulder. Through the window overlooking the valley, ringing with gold, comes the sun, a fat slice of butter.

Set deep in the Dorset countryside, this is the home of cook Julius Roberts, our collaborator for Autumn 23. Surrounded by orchards, the scent of windfall apples is sharp and sweet. It mingles with the earthiness of vegetable patches and the jammy, grassy tones of hay – the bales prepared for Julius’s young goats that bound around the farm.

It was amid this scene that we found ourselves last year, collecting scent profiles that would shape the Autumn 23 fragrance.

The best thing, Julius told us, was the fig tree. We found it growing against the southern wall below an open window, its waxy leaves a heartstopping green between the smooth grey boughs. The figs themselves have long since been plucked and eaten, but the scent of the leaves is emerald, clear and wild – holding traces of the delicious fruit.

We all agreed that this should be the heart of the fragrance. But how to recreate it? Fig is a “mute” plant – you cannot extract its essence. We explored this with Elodie, our nose, and after six months of exacting work we created a natural fig accord – rich and multi-faceted, it has as its stars violet leaf and tonka bean.

To build a picture of the landscape around this fig accord, we looked to orris root and carrot seed. Orris is powdery, soft, earthy, slightly sweet, even suede-like. One of the rarest perfume ingredients, it pairs beautifully with woody, spicy carrot seed.

From here, Julius was keen to take the scent in a darker direction. To capture some of those embers in the open fireplace, the remains of autumn bonfires in the landscape. And so we turned to birch tar, an ingredient we haven’t used since Winter 21, for its distinctive smokey facet.

The result is quite different from any other Ffern fragrance – dark fruit, rich hay, a drift of smoke. A fragrance for the harvest festival”

The label for Autumn 23 perfume box.

The artwork on the pamphlet, with a larger version on the back.

Pertaining to this artwork, Ffern writes:

“For this season’s artwork, we knew we had to capture something of the farm’s visual beauty. Colette LaVette, whose compositions recall Rococo and Renaissance masters, has created a painting alive with the character we found there and the ingredients of the fragrance – if you look closely you’ll spy Julius’s goats, his dog, carrots (complete with roots and flowers), irises, rock rose (labdanum), geranium, fit leaves, violet leaves and an apple tree.”

How the sampling items are stored inside its box.

Items inside the box contain a sampling guide, two sampling mouillettes, an autumn tea, a terracotta diffusion stone, and a sample of Autumn 23. If you don’t like the scent after smelling the sample, do not break the seal on the perfume box. You can return the perfume by filling out a return form on Ffern.

On the tea and diffusion stone, Ffern writes:

“This season we have blended another batch of our popular Autumn Tea for our ledger members, made on the herb farm just across the lane from our studio in Somerset. We hope you will take some time out of your day to enjoy this organic, caffeine free tea.

We have also included a handmade terracotta diffusion stone - spray with Ffern fragrance a few times a day and place in your chosen space.”

Here are the steps on how to sample a perfume:

Apply the fragrance directly to the top of the wrists, from a distance of 5-15cm. If you’re not ready to try it on skin, you can use the mouillette.
Leave for 20 seconds before smelling, to avoid a rush of alcohol. Our organic Italian grain vodka base evaporates extremely quicly and it’s best to wait for this to pass.
Bring your nose close to the wrist or mouillette and very gently inhale. It doesn’t take much to pick up the scent and if you inhale too strongly you risk desensitising your nose. The notes you can smell at this stage are the “top notes’.
Return to the fragrance every 10-20 minutes and you’ll notice the transition to the mid notes. After roughly one hour, the base notes will follow. You might like to consult our ingredients list and try to pick out each individual note as the fragrance evolves.

The inside of the Autumn 23 perfume bottle box.

The Autumn 23 cardboard container. I would have liked a metal cap for the top instead, as I prefer taking the bottle out of the cardboard tube.

Autumn 23 Ingredients and Scent Notes

Top Notes:

Fig leaf accord
Timut pepper
Nutmeg
Sweet orange rind
Lemon rind
Green mandarin rind

Middle Notes:

Carrot seed
Bergamot rind
Basil grand vert
Jasmine grandiflorum
Geranium
Neroli
Patchouli

Base Notes:

Hay
Orris
Benzoin Siam
Birch tar
Red cedar
Labdanum
Vetiver root

When I tried Autumn 23, I definitely smelled the top notes of something spicy, but also smokey. I can smell that hint of an open bonfire, which for me isn’t something I really enjoy. However, after about 10–15 minutes, that smokiness fades away, I end up mostly smelling the sweetness from the lemon and orange, and a slight musty hay scent. Most of the floral scents I only smell straight from the bottle, and not necessarily on the skin.

Overall, it’s a unique perfume that I haven’t seen anything similar at mainstream beauty stores. And I like that the fragrance can be used as a unisex scent. I’ve seen from reddit users that the majority of Ffern perfumes end up having very similar scents, so I would like to try out a few more seasons and see if that’s true. You can leave the ledger at anytime if you would rather not purchase any future perfumes.