Beauty Brand 2 Know: Fueguia 1833

Argentinian and a fine nose, Julian Badel created a brand of sustainable fragrances that come all the way from Patagonia: Julian got inspired by the cultures of South America, by their art, history and music. His passion for perfume started thanks to his partner, who loves having scented candles at home, while his love for the scents of nature comes from Julian’s childhood. His father used to burn wood after pruning the trees around their home, and the sweet, yet powerful smell of burnt wood left a mark in Julian’s mind. Badel is a lute maker, a sculptor and a painter, and creating emotions and feelings thanks to scents became his next creative challenge.

Fueguia 1833 was founded in 2010 in Buenos Aires. The name refers to the time of scientific explorations in the south of Argentina, and it is a homage to Fueguia Basket, a young girl who was born in Tierra Del Fuego, and was taken away from her family by explorer Robert FitzRoy, along with other young people her age, for them to be educated as Christian children in England. The idea was to send the children back years later, to “set a good example” for the native populations in the south. A few years after the children were taken to England, the authorities decided that this experiment was a bad idea, and FitzRoy took Fueguia and the others back to Argentina. These children’s life was very hard, though, because their communities did not really accept them when they came back, and always kept them at arm’s length. The Fueguia 1833 collection is made of 66 perfumes which come in a limited edition — and this is because they are all made with natural ingredients that are quite rare, due to climate change affecting the quality and availability of raw materials. Each perfume is unique, and the bottles containing each of them are always marked with production year and lot number.

Each perfume is strictly handmade, and the mixes are born of the very essence of raw materials, that get distilled to their very heart. The base of the scents comes from different kinds of South American wood, like cedars, cypress and red fir. Each perfume tells a story, and a single drop is enough to instantly take us to the ocean in Argentina.

Lago del Desierto, its name not only evokes the great images of the lake that sits at the foot of mount Fitz Roy, its delicate cedar notes bring to mind the delicate scent of ice on mountains. What else could we say about a perfume that creates such fantastic sensorial experiences?