ESScent Of The Week: If A Cloud Had A Signature Scent, Future Society’s Cloud Reverie Would Be It

When a brand tells me a fragrance was made from microbes collected out of the actual sky, I have two reactions. The first is, “wow, that’s scientifically fascinating,” and also, what the heck does that even smell like? 

I now have the answer.

Cloud Reverie is the newest launch from Future Society, which is a brand that doesn’t really do ‘safe.’ To make this one, they captured microorganisms from the sky above Boston and incubated and sequenced them to build a scent blueprint from scratch. The result is a mix of species and scent molecules that had never been combined before. Master perfumer Daniela Andrier was then brought in to translate all of that science into a wearable fragrance. She used that to build something with no traditional top, middle, or base structure, which means it moves and changes on your skin in a way that feels completely organic. Fluffy vanilla, iris, sweet sugar, sparkling aldehyde, aquatic blooms, oceanic fucus, and musk are all present, and the result is something that probably could not have been made any other way.

Why I love it: Aldehydes and I have never had well, the… smoothest relationship. They have a way of going sharp and soapy in a direction that can turn a fragrance into something your grandmother would wear, and not in a nostalgic way. So when I saw them listed among the notes here, I started managing my expectations before I even pulled the cap off. Then I smelled it and had to revisit everything I thought I knew about what aldehydes could do in a modern fragrance.

The opening is exactly what a cloud should smell like, and I mean that literally. It is clean, sweet, and soft in a way that immediately reminded me of baby cologne, and if you know what actual baby cologne smells like, you already understand the specific kind of warm, enveloping comfort I am describing. The vanilla and sugar work together to keep the aldehydes grounded, and what you get instead of that sharp soapiness is a softness that never tips over into overwhelming. Give it about ten minutes and it starts to evolve. The iris settles in and pulls the scent in a slightly different direction, and on my skin there was something faintly bright and citrusy that I could not quite place but appreciated. A few hours after that, you are in full powder bomb: deep, cozy, close-to-the-skin powder that I kept catching on myself throughout the day, and every time I did, I thought this is exactly what comfort smells like.

My honest take is that everything in this fragrance will feel familiar to anyone who spends real time with perfume. The iris, the vanilla, and the musk are all ingredients you have encountered before in other contexts. But what Future Society keeps proving with every release is that the concept behind a fragrance can be entirely new even when the individual materials are not, and starting from actual clouds produces something that could not have come from anywhere else. And what came out of that process is something I was not expecting to love as much as I do. That said, this fragrance leans powdery in a way that is going to divide people. If soft, comforting, and clean are the qualities you reach for when you choose a scent, this is going to feel like it was made specifically for you. If powder tends to be a dealbreaker, please test this one on your skin before you commit to a full bottle.

Perfect pairings: The drydown on Cloud Reverie is soft enough that it layers without competing with whatever else you have on. My favorite combination so far has been Maison Margiela Replica Sailing Day applied first, with Cloud Reverie layered on top. Sailing Day has that clean, slightly beachy, coconut-tinged quality that speaks directly to the aquatic blooms and oceanic fucus in Cloud Reverie, and the two together amplify that dimension of the scent before the powder eventually takes over. It is a genuinely interesting combination because you get two very different characters sharing the same space without either one getting swallowed up by the other. For something that deepens the iris accord specifically, Diptyque Fleur de Peau underneath Cloud Reverie is the move. Fleur de Peau is already built around iris and musk, so layering Cloud Reverie over it does not create competition so much as it creates a conversation, and the result is something that feels very close to the skin and very intimate without being heavy. For longevity without added sweetness, Ellis Brooklyn MYTH as a base layer is worth trying. MYTH is a clean white musk fragrance, and it essentially acts as an anchor here, extending the wear of Cloud Reverie’s drydown considerably without pushing it further into vanilla or sugar territory, which given how much sweetness is already present in this fragrance, is exactly what you want.

Cloud Reverie is available now at wearefuturesociety.com for $98. Just don’t blind buy if powder isn’t your thing.

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