WIT & WEST PERFUMES IN THE PRESS

Colorado has a state flower (Columbine), state animal (Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep) and even a state amphibian (Western Tiger Salamander). But what about the state smell?

Professional perfumer (read: smell-er) Whitney Swales, co-owner of the perfume company Wit & West, thought of the smell of an alpine meadow or maybe hiking a 14er — a mix of several notes. 

The Wit & West Reserve Collection Perfume Caldera Flower has been named a Top 10 Best Perfume of 2025 2X by the esteemed fragrance website and blog, ÇaFleureBon. In addition to receiving 2 Top 10 Best Perfumes of 2025, ÇaFleureBon Editor-in-Chief, Michelyn Camen, also named it the Best Natural Perfume of 2025.

A story of inspiration, vision, and the courage to create something deeply personal. Founded in 2021 in Denver, Colorado, Wit & West is the creative project of Whitney Swales and her husband, Rob Westendorf: an independent artisan perfume house dedicated to all-natural, small-batch perfumery. 

Caldera Flower by Wit & West has begun to sing in our warm spring weather. In my earlier review, I wrote of it "I'm a fan of their ylang-ginger-bubblegum accord!" and that feeling has only increased as the weather has heated up.

These independent perfumeries are sharing the art of fragrance with their customers, enhancing the olfactory experience and adding a personal touch. Featuring Wit & West's Bespoke Perfume Experience.

Caldera Flower may also be Wit & West’s most lavish and sophisticated creation to date. Artisan perfumer Wit has a true talent for using white florals in her natural perfumes, and her knack for this fragrance style shines brightly in this creation. The fragrance features gardenia in its purest and deepest form. Wit used both a rare gardenia absolute and a gardenia enfleurage in the formulation.

Wit & West is the only 100% natural perfume brand in this list, and I got to try out their newest launch Caldera Flower. This scent is inspired by the lush tropics of Panama and has notes of Bergamot, Neroli, Ginger, Gardenia Absolute, Magnolia, Ylang Ylang, Sandalwood, In-House Tahitian Vanilla Tincture, and Ambrette Seed. I love the lush symphony of white florals that dominate here and the warm undercurrent that hushes the perfume’s initial brightness. Ginger is such an interesting top note and one I rarely get to experience. Overall, Caldera Flower is a transportive fragrance that’s breathtakingly beautiful.

Panama’s lush aromas surround me, and Caldera Flower in all its beauty seeps into me, each inhalation threading into the recesses of my mind. Wit & West Caldera Flower is a creative shared experience that captures a beautiful memory’s essence and deeply imprints it in my heart, a fragrant moment forever carved in time and fragrance.

Caldera Flower gives my previous brand favorite, La Valse, competition as owner of my heart! It is an exceedingly transportive tropical floral fragrance. The more I wear it, the more I like it and appreciate its photorealism and ability to transport me to Panama. Well done, Wit!

Whitney Swales, the owner and perfumer for Wit & West Perfumes, grew up in Colorado Springs and has always been drawn to fragrance. Her dad owned a British import shop when she was young, and she especially loved the apothecary section. They stocked Floris London Perfume, and Swales fell in love with the intoxicating scents as well as the history of the company and of fragrance itself.

“I’ve always loved perfume. It’s always been a part of my life growing up,” Swales said. “Both my parents wore perfume … I just thought that it was normal that everyone wore perfume.”

With 2 fragrances featured in our July 2024 Olfactif Collection, we thought you should get to know these wonderful people and the intoxicating compositions made by perfumer and co-founder Whitney Swales, so let us introduce you…

"For me, natural perfumery is something I do simply because I love working with natural ingredients. I love their depth and complexity. They are challenging and finicky, and I love a good challenge. I also have a love for the historical and classic styles of perfumery as well as artisan methods of extraction including enfleurage, tincturing and distillation. My goal is to show people that natural perfume – as a genre of perfumery – is beautiful and unique in its own right."

"Wit & West is a small-batch botanical perfume company based and made in the USA. We love Wit & West because they're cruelty-free, 100% vegan, and made from conscious natural ingredients. Their brand philosophy is to create unique scents, so you don't smell like everyone else."

"...at Wit & West, we don’t outsource any of our fulfillment or logistics processes. Everything from ingredient and packaging sourcing, inventory management, and fulfillment is done completely in-house."

"...The Wit & West vision and ethos is centered around authenticity as an independent perfume brand that values perfumery as an art and creations that don’t smell like everything else..."

La Valse was intended to be the waltz to end all waltzes. La Valse seems to be a rose fragrance to end all rose fragrances. Whitney Swales, ballroom dancer and natural perfumer for Wit & West, describes the story behind La Valse as a dance of grace and elegance transporting you to a different time.

...Wit & West's The Violetear opens with a mystical flittering of bergamot flanked by the other delightful waftings from a stunning garden cared for with loving, grateful hands. It is then mixed with the components of the earth to create a beautiful Fougere that dances on your skin. It is not an overpowering fragrance but has an astonishing, lasting presence... 

...Whitney Swales shatters the myth that iris flowers are mute and produce no scent. In The Violetear, the opulence of the reserve iris enfleurage rises in a rainbow of amethyst, mauves, periwinkle, and plum. This gorgeous fragrance expands our knowledge of what is possible in perfumery...

...Honestly, it’s a total shame that majority of people will never discover perfume beyond the department store and Sephora aisles. They will never discover perfume as it should be, as it used to be, before labs and big corporations took over. I’m hoping to change that one post at a time. Wit & West perfumes are full of depth, complexity and interesting note combinations that are totally addictive...