Mandy Aftel says the idea for her perfume Sepia came while she was driving through ghost towns in California’s gold rush country. “I was struck by their desolate splendor…the beauty of ruins and old buildings and the countryside,” says Aftel, a niche perfumer based in Berkeley.
Sepia opens with notes of mandarin and blood cedarwood, moves into coffee, cocoa, and pink lotus, and culminates with musky
