June 5, 2025 |
Take the scent of spring and bottle it. That’s what Horace co-founder and CEO, Marc Terlet, set out to achieve when concocting the brand’s latest fragrance, Vetiver Primavera. The zesty scent is the fourth fragrance to join the men’s grooming brand’s roster, following the woody/floral fusion Oud Rose, the subdued &Horace and L’étiquette; a sophisticated collaboration with the publication of the same name that’s sold out internationally.
Vetiver Primavera has all the elegance of a crisp white shirt bathed in the glow of Italian sunshine. It’s built around a trio of citrus top notes: lemon, yuzu and mandarin. “It is suave but very bright, fresh and joyful” says Terlet of the scent, which is laced with orange blossom and the smokiness of vetiver. “We smelt the citrus top notes and created a story around the scent. It’s like you’re venturing through a citrus orchard in the countryside.”
The brand envisioned a scent that is light and easy to wear. Crafted in Grasse, the birthplace of the world’s most beloved fragrances, the interesting use of the Japanese citrus yuzu is a sparkling addition to the scent. The orange blossom, on the other hand, brings a sweetness that is in harmony with the fresh mandarin. “It’s really like a citrus bouquet,” says Terlet.
Yet the foundation of the scent is hinted at in the name. “What’s so nice about vetiver is that it’s like a fragrance all in itself, it has so many facets,” says Meahb MacCurtin of International Flavors & Fragrances Inc, the nose of the scent. “It’s earthy, it’s woody, it has this peanut-y part and it has a citrus touch on top. If you imagine that as like a jewel at the centre, and then the citrus is something you embroider into it to highlight the facets that are already in [vetiver].”
Already the biggest men’s skincare label in France with 17 stores across the country, Horace, founded in 2016, has rapidly expanded its reach internationally, opening its first London flagship in Covent Garden last year.
The brand’s reliable, no-fuss products – including a purifying face cleanser, mattifying face moisturiser and under eye patches – are fixtures in the daily routines of men globally thanks to their great formulas, slick packaging and accessible prices. A 50ml bottle of Vetiver Primavera costs £62, as do the rest of the brand’s scents – an applaudable factor wihin the crowded fragrance market.
“Creating fragrance is really an art but, at the same time, it’s very important for us that you can actually understand what you are smelling, you’ll be able to smell the raw materials in our scents,” says Terlet. “It has to be accessible because not everyone can buy a £400 bottle every six months. With our new scents, we’ve seen people start buying the fragrances without smelling them because they trust us and they’re £62. We love that we are able to help our customers find their scents.”
Photography courtesy of Horace. Buy Vetiver Primavera here.
