“I used to work in several creative marketing agencies as a content writer and social media planner for eight years,” he says, “before I decided to finally do something for my own good: making a name out of myself as someone who is great at doing the things I love.” The name is doing fine. The things he loves, as you are about to see, run deeper than a feed can show.

I have always been crossing paths with roads that lead me to creativity, especially when it involves something deep and personal about my own identity. I will never call myself an artist, but I am always emotionally able to engage with artistic things. People might know me as someone with a specific liking for “artistic” perfumes, but my obsession with scent did not start anywhere artistic. At first I sought fragrances that matched the way I view myself, or who I want to be. My Übermensch, as Nietzsche said, though I am never really sure, even now, if I am there yet. I don’t think anyone ever is. That is why the first batch of my collection was designer fragrances: Nautica Voyage, Thierry Mugler A*Men Pure Malt, Bentley for Men Intense.

But any fixation I have always leads me somewhere creative and artistic. I keep my collection personal and true to myself, even when my line of work as an independent content creator keeps pushing me toward the algorithm, the market, the trend, anything to keep the numbers up. That is why fragrances like Nasomatto, Toskovat, Orto Parisi, Francesca Bianchi, and definitely HoM Haute are the ones that can always move me.

Why, maybe you ask. It is because I like to read things. Not just books: video games, movies, music, everything. That is why I love fragrances that are so deep I can read them. Fragrances so complex, so rich with character, that even the Middle Eastern dupe brands cannot copy them letters by letters. After all, wouldn’t it be interesting if I could wear something that deep onto my skin and let it merge, creating its own chemistry with my body, and be perceived by people through it?

Terre d’Hermès EDT is the first fragrance I felt close to my Übermensch. It was the first thing I could call a “masterpiece” in perfumery. I always dreamt about the person I want to become. I dreamt about my future physique, the public validation, the fashion, the way I articulate things. Never the scent. Yet when I tried Terre d’Hermès EDT for the first time, I knew it was it. It was the thing missing from my dream. My Übermensch.

Recently, aside from the local Indonesian mass market and the Middle Eastern dupes I wear to review and test, I find myself revolving around Terre d’Hermès EDT, Serge Lutens L’Orpheline, HoM Haute Better Left Unsaid (Batch 4), Hutan Aromantika Rona Neroli, Elevoix Sovereign’s Veil, and Nasomatto Micodelirio. But I don’t know if tomorrow, or maybe in the next two hours, the rotation changes based on what I currently have in my collection. Maybe I’ll wear Jovoy Les Jeux Sont Faits and EBK Alexandrite & Patchouli more often. Who knows?

Recently, I was clinically diagnosed with ADHD. So I have had to build a small daily ritual I never kept before: drinking my black coffee with my medication, my ashwagandha, and my L-Theanine supplements. And of course, I start my morning by kissing my wife, and I finish the day by hugging her until we both fall asleep.

Taste is personal, and I don’t want to dictate that anyone change who they are or what their taste is. Because when your taste is free from any kind of influence, it is “good taste”. Therefore, you should free yourself completely, from everything, to find what good taste really means.

Ask him for one belief he would defend to the end and he does not reach for perfumery at all. He reaches further back, to a line he keeps like a compass.