A portrait in two chapters
Ajeng A. W.
Her own housePoetica
Founder · Storyteller · Scent creator · Creative director
Softness is not the opposite of strength.
The softness that holds
Ajeng studied business management, but fragrance became the language with which she could keep what speech let escape. For her, sensitivity is not decoration. It is a way of paying closer attention.
The songs beside the work
Music belongs to Ajeng’s creative atmosphere in the same way that fabric, poetry, and familiar rituals do. Open her playlist or let it accompany the interview here.
Open the full playlistWhen did fragrance become a language?
I graduated in business management, so building and creating something has always been part of me. My love for fragrance followed me through every stage of life. Being able to tell stories from my life through scent had always been a dream.
I am still learning every day, and that is one of the things I love about perfumery. There is always something new to discover.
Fragrance as a sentence that stays
For Ajeng, fragrance is both museum and pen. It collects the artwork of other people, then gives her a way to write down what she cannot always say aloud.
What is your relationship with fragrance?
It feels like a collection of artworks in a museum, as well as a pen. Fragrance is a way to collect and write down memorable stories from every stage of life.
I admire every kind of fragrance, even the bold and quirky ones. It is exciting to discover a new scent because I get to discover another story and the reasons behind each layer. I naturally lean towards airy, ethereal, whimsical, and poetic scents because they feel closest to who I am.
What are you wearing now?
Some delicate florals, and sometimes vanilla when I want to be in my own bubble and feel most like myself.
Most of the time I choose something very light, clean, or musky, or even no perfume at all. Distance resets my nose and keeps my relationship with fragrance exciting. It helps me appreciate perfume even more when I return to it.
What does good taste mean to you?
I do not think there is one definition of good taste. There are groups of people who share similar preferences, while others simply have different ones.
Maybe good taste is being able to appreciate any kind of scent, from the familiar and simple to the strangest and most unconventional. It does not always have to match what people think is beautiful. Sometimes you have to trust your own nose and your own instincts.
“Softness is not the opposite of strength. Being gentle, sensitive, and emotional can be a way of understanding the world deeper.”
Memory Lane
The scent of soft leather brings Ajeng back to her late father and his brief obsession with leather jackets. Years later, an early formula of green fig, patchouli, tobacco leaf, and soft leather returned her to him. It became the perfume she never had the chance to share with her father, and the one that now lets her carry part of him forward.
Step into the house
What follows is not her answers but her work — the objects, the commissions, the small batches, and the room where the poems are read aloud.
Poetica Perfumery
A journal, a keepsake, and a gentle side of artisan perfumery. Poetica gives form to the stories Ajeng once found difficult to say aloud.
A garden waitsbeneath soft woolin silver morning.
Compose the atmosphere
Choose an image, a texture, and a light. The scent itself remains for Ajeng and the wearer to imagine.
The first page
Poetica began while Ajeng was pursuing her master’s degree. She collected materials and equipment little by little, building a working world in the corner of a small flat.
One of her earliest creations was a bespoke fragrance for a friend. From that first personal commission, Poetica slowly grew from an idea into a house.
Time spent working with House of Medici between 2023 and early 2025 widened the horizon. It showed her that perfume had no single standard and did not need to chase the same trends to be valid.
“Why can’t artisan perfume be soft, airy, pretty, and comforting?”
Two books of time
Choose a collection, then open a fragrance. Each title begins with an ordinary image and holds a different form of remembrance.
Bespoke at Poetica
The collections bottle Ajeng’s stories. Bespoke perfumery lets her help preserve someone else’s memories, milestones, music, places, and people.
The process begins in conversation and often takes visual form as a mood board. A fragrance is then built slowly, allowing a client’s private atmosphere to become something they can wear and revisit.
For Ajeng, the trust is the most important material.
