“We see perfumery as an art.”
— Tomáš Ric, founder
A clear cylindrical bottle with a dark brown wooden cap. Lettering placed directly on the glass overlaps the pale gold liquid. In PIGMENTARIUM’s Ad Libitum, an interest in Prague’s architecture and design is expressed in both the fragrance and its container.
The brand, which began in the Czech capital of Prague in 2018, is led by Tomáš Ric. Having studied economics, he made perfume his profession after meeting a friend with a talent for perfumery. Since then, the brand has created works through dialogue with fashion designers, sculptors and a French perfumer. Following that journey reveals an approach rooted in Czech culture yet open to perspectives from outside it.
Basic Information
- Founded: 2018
- Founder: Tomáš Ric. In the early years, he worked with perfumer Jakub F. Hiermann.
- Based in: Prague, Czechia
- Main products: Perfumes, incense and interior objects such as incense burners
- Presence in Japan: Moriyama announced an authorized distribution agreement in 2025. Available through EDIT(h) stores, its official online shop and other outlets.
The Founder and the Brand’s Beginnings
Between Economics and Photography, Finding a Profession in Perfume
When Ric moved to Prague, he was torn between studying economics and studying photography.
“In the end, I made the practical choice, but my desire to create never disappeared.”
— Tomáš Ric
His experience in economics and fashion would later lead to the work of shaping perfumes into a brand.
He was 23 when he started the business and was approaching the end of a university master’s program. He invested his savings in the first perfume. He had not previously known how the beauty business worked; he took the step because he was drawn to the beauty of perfume and the possibilities it offered for expression.
Although he had wanted to start a business, meeting Jakub F. Hiermann was what led him to choose perfumery. Ric has said that, had he not encountered that talent, he would have gone into another field. The meeting of a business-building perspective and a fragrance-making perspective was the brand’s starting point.
From Jakub’s Personal Perfume to the First Ad Libitum
Among Jakub’s childhood scent memories was Guerlain’s Shalimar, worn by Jakub’s grandmother. While living in London, Jakub took perfumery courses and began making perfume as a hobby. Those experiments, including scents made for friends, developed into professional work.
Ad Libitum, the first release in 2018, was originally a perfume Jakub had made for personal use. In the brand’s early years, Jakub created the fragrances, while Ric gave them a visual expression and a narrative context.
“My head is full of plans, processes and meetings. Jakub’s is full of scents, colors and dreams.”
— Tomáš Ric
The two contrasting personalities shared the values they considered important for the brand. By bringing their respective strengths to the partnership, they grew that first bottle into a brand.
The name expresses that sensibility too. Ric explains that Latin and color provided the starting points for naming it. Scent is invisible, but by connecting it with colors, lettering, photographs and spaces, one can communicate the world toward which a creation is directed. Here lies the reason PIGMENTARIUM has considered perfume and visual expression together from the beginning.
From Small Production Runs to Czech Craftspeople and Overseas Stores
The production setup was not in place from the start. Even in Czechia, with its traditions of glass and porcelain, the two had to build the arrangements for making perfume from scratch. With limited funds and orders numbering only a few hundred pieces, finding manufacturers willing to take them on was a major challenge.
They built relationships with local craftspeople and family-run workshops. Starting with small orders and continuing their conversations, they brought together the boxes, printing and elements of the containers. The way those early small production runs led to direct involvement with the makers is important to understanding the brand.
Czech customers supported the brand first, and their repeat purchases gave Ric a sense that the quality of the perfumes had been accepted. At the same time, expansion abroad was in view from the outset. By early 2022, the brand already had outlets in cities including Amsterdam and Paris, and was seeking partners who shared its way of thinking. Local support and collaborators abroad helped the brand grow in parallel.
Seeing Prague Afresh through Meeting Théo Belmas
The next turning point was a collaboration with Théo Belmas, a French perfumer based in Paris. When searching for a new perfumer, Ric initially wanted someone with an instinctive understanding of Prague’s atmosphere. As he considered welcoming a perfumer from outside Czechia, one question kept returning to his mind.
“Would it still be PIGMENTARIUM?”
— Tomáš Ric
Eventually, he set that condition aside and contacted Théo, who had stayed in his memory, through Instagram. As they talked, the relationship developed quickly, and Théo came to visit Prague.
Their walks through the city included a church Ric had attended as a student. One step away from the bustle of the street, they were surrounded by incense, old wood and the coolness of stone, with winter light streaming through the windows. That experience became the starting point for Oratorio, unveiled in autumn 2023. Seeing a familiar city alongside a visitor opened up new subject matter for a fragrance.
Brutal, released in 2025, layered fashion and bar culture onto Czech Brutalist architecture of the 1970s and 1980s. David Ševčík contributed to the inspiration, and the work with Théo took 14 months. Continuing the early interest in modernism, the fragrance turned toward a more recent era of Prague.
Expansion in Japan and a Limited Bottle with Two Languages
In Japan, Moriyama announced its authorized distribution agreement and domestic rollout in September 2025. Following advance sales at the EDIT(h) Tenjin store, the brand was also presented at Salon de Parfum at Isetan Shinjuku. This was a period when opportunities to encounter the independent Czech perfume brand in Japan were expanding.
On October 5, 2026, a limited edition of Aereo for Japan was unveiled in Tokyo. Its collaborator was the Czech artist Michaela Fenkl, also known as Mi-Ka. The project followed their collaboration on Paradiso in 2023 and, this time, coincided with her own move to Japan.
The 50 ml bottle and box incorporated the poem “Silence, Half Spoken,” placing Japanese and Czech side by side. It was a choice to position the work between two cultures without using English as an intermediary. The relationship with a place enters the expression of the packaging, rather than the brand simply adding another sales territory. This limited edition shows how PIGMENTARIUM takes on new forms through collaboration.
What Matters to the Brand
Translating Architectural Themes into Different Fragrance Compositions
Against the backdrop of Prague’s functionalist architecture, Ad Libitum brings a classical chypre structure into the present. Current official information moves from tangerine, bergamot and aldehydes to cedar, jasmine and neroli, with oakmoss, musk and patchouli forming the base. Focusing on the contrast between bright citrus and a mossy, earthy foundation allows the clean-lined bottle and the fragrance’s intentions to be considered together.
Although it shares that interest in architecture, Brutal addresses a different era and different materials. Its official notes include Negroni and black coffee accords, tuberose, tobacco, amber and sandalwood. An accord is a coherent scent created from several fragrance materials; it does not mean the drinks themselves have been added to the formula.
This is something I appreciate. By including not only the cityscape but also its drinks, flowers and nighttime social life, the brand broadens the architectural theme. When comparing Ad Libitum and Brutal, a starting point is whether you want to focus on the contrast between citrus and moss or are drawn to a composition that layers flowers over impressions of coffee and alcohol.
Genesis, Born from Personal Memories
Genesis began as a perfume created in 2020 for sculptor Tereza Štětinová. She entrusted the perfumer with memories of a summer garden in childhood and a longing for the sea. Originally a personal commission, the scent was used in an art exhibition before being released to the public in 2022.
During its creation, she asked to avoid citrus. Verbena was therefore chosen to create a lemon-like impression and was reportedly combined with green apple, lily of the valley and fig leaves, among other notes. The current official notes also list verbena, lily of the valley, green apple and fig leaves.
What I would draw attention to is the way the themes of summer and the sea are brought closer to memories of garden plants. Even when seeking brightness, as with Ad Libitum, in Genesis I would look toward the expression of leaves and herbs rather than citrus. This offers a way to distinguish between different kinds of freshness.
The Coolness and Light of Oratorio, the Quiet of Aereo
Oratorio places the contrast between a church’s stillness and the city’s energy and light into scent. The brightness of mandarin and neroli is combined with olibanum, cedar and jasmine, with patchouli and opoponax in the base. Olibanum, also called frankincense, is an incense resin; opoponax is a resinous fragrance material with a sweet character.
Even for someone drawn to the theme of incense, looking at how citrus and flowers are combined, rather than expecting only the darkness and weight of resins, can bring the fragrance’s intentions closer. It is interesting how the experience of light entering a church connects to the contrast between materials.
Aereo, from 2026, approaches stillness differently. Its composition centers on Cashmeran, with pink pepper and myrrh. Compared with fragrances that depict a landscape through an array of materials, it focuses its expression on a small number of elements. Within a brand that began with the culture of a city, a direction seeking calm and breathing space is also developing.
Lettering, Wooden Caps and Paper Boxes Assembled by Hand
The visual expression also has ties to Czechia. The brand’s typeface takes inspiration from Czech banknotes, and its logo from the skyline of Prague’s roofs and towers. Memories of a place are invested in lettering and symbols, then placed on a cylindrical bottle.
Ad Libitum’s container combines clear glass with a wooden cap. Its lettering is printed directly on the glass, overlaying rather than concealing the liquid’s color. Studio Činčera, a family-run workshop in Prague, has been involved in making the paper boxes. The current official statement of the brand’s approach also identifies printing by Czech craftspeople and hand-folded boxes as elements of its production.
The fragrance’s story begins before the container is opened. The brand’s character lies in translating its interest in architecture and art not only into photographs but also into the feel of glass, wood and paper.
Expanding from Perfume into Incense and Incense Burners
Alongside perfumes worn on the skin, PIGMENTARIUM offers incense and incense burners for bringing scent into a space. Through pieces such as the incense burners made with porcelain artist Daniel Piršč, the brand has considered the tools for using fragrance as works in their own right.
Where production takes place depends on the product. According to the brand’s official statement, its perfumes are created in laboratories in Prague, while its incense is made by a small family-run workshop in Sri Lanka. It says the incense workshop was chosen after an in-person visit. While valuing Czech craft, the brand also draws on skills from elsewhere. Its approach to making scents and the objects used with them is expanding from what one wears to the time one spends in a room.
Relationships with Prague’s craftspeople, workshops encountered on travels, perfumers and artists support PIGMENTARIUM’s work.
“PIGMENTARIUM itself is a story of friendship, respect and the joy of creating together.”
— Tomáš Ric
As an Aside…
Azabache Began with a Playlist and Two Prototypes
Azabache, from 2021, was a collaboration with the Paris-based fashion designer Arturo Obegero. The project began during the pandemic, and communication took place mainly through Instagram and Zoom. Obegero sent a detailed account of the inspiration and a playlist to share with the two.
Once they had decided to center the fragrance on rose, Jakub sent two different prototypes to Paris. They reportedly met in person only about six months after the exchanges began, when they were working on the bottle. Before they met, the work linking clothes and perfume had already progressed through exchanges of music, words and scent. It is a production story that makes Ric’s role in communicating a creation’s background particularly clear.
References
- PIGMENTARIUM: VALUES — Founding year, founder, approach to art and craft, and production locations for each product — https://www.pigmentarium.com/en/pages/values
- DSCENE: Interview with the two in the early years (July 29, 2021) — Learning perfumery, scent memories and the challenges of small production runs — https://www.designscene.net/2021/07/dscene-interview-pigmentarium.html
- Here & There: A report on PIGMENTARIUM — Early roles, the brand name, typeface and logo, and the packaging workshop — https://www.hereandthereseries.com/pigmentarium
- Harper’s Bazaar Czech: Interview with Tomáš Ric (January 8, 2022) — Meeting, international expansion and the making of Azabache — https://harpersbazaar.cz/hblovers/tomas-ric-velmi-rychle-jsem-poznal-ze-je-tvorba-parfemu-neco-vyjimecneho/
- Fucking Young!: A report on the creation of Genesis (June 1, 2022) — The origins of Ad Libitum, the artist’s commission and the choice of materials — https://fuckingyoung.es/pigmentariums-genesis-has-us-ready-for-summer-and-new-beginnings/
- Aus Liebe zum Duft: Interview with Tomáš Ric (October 24, 2023) — The choice between economics and photography, and local customers — https://www.alzd.de/en/2023/10/24/interview-with-pigmentariums-founder-tomas-ric-niche-fragrances-from-prague/
- HUNGER: Interview with Tomáš Ric (November 19, 2025) — Studies and funding at the start, the approach to perfumery as art, and incense burners — https://hungermag.com/beauty/pigmentarium-is-turning-pragues-culture-into-perfume
- PIGMENTARIUM: ORATORIO: BEHIND THE SCENES — Ric’s own account of meeting the perfumer, their experiences in Prague and the autumn 2023 unveiling — https://www.pigmentarium.com/en/blogs/news/oratorio-behind-the-scenes
- MAGPAPER: Interview with Tomáš Ric — The inspiration for Brutal, collaboration and development time — https://www.magpaper.digital/magpaper/pigmentarium-the-journey-of-a-czech-niche-perfume-brand
- Moriyama: Press release on the brand’s launch in Japan (September 26, 2025) — Authorized distribution agreement, EDIT(h) Tenjin and Salon de Parfum — https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000015.000101918.html
- PIGMENTARIUM: AEREO LIMITED EDITION FOR JAPAN (2026) — The Tokyo unveiling, collaboration with Mi-Ka and the poem on the limited-edition bottle — https://www.pigmentarium.com/en/blogs/news/aereo-limited-edition-for-japan
- Perfume Lounge: Announcement of a PIGMENTARIUM event in 2026 — The timing of Aereo’s release — https://www.perfumelounge.eu/pigmentarium-fragrances-and-event-2026
- PIGMENTARIUM: Ad Libitum — Current fragrance composition and container — https://www.pigmentarium.com/en/products/ad-libitum
- PIGMENTARIUM: Genesis — Current fragrance composition — https://www.pigmentarium.com/en/products/genesis
- PIGMENTARIUM: Oratorio — Current fragrance composition and theme — https://www.pigmentarium.com/products/oratorio
- PIGMENTARIUM: Brutal — Current fragrance composition — https://www.pigmentarium.com/products/brutal
- PIGMENTARIUM: Aereo — Current fragrance composition — https://www.pigmentarium.com/products/aereo
- PIGMENTARIUM: RETAILERS — Current stockists in Japan — https://www.pigmentarium.com/en/pages/retailers
- EDIT(h) official online shop: PIGMENTARIUM — Current availability in Japan — https://shop.edithtokyo.com/?gid=3127232&mode=grp
