MIRKO BUFFINI FIRENZE: Its Founding Story and Fragrance Creation Inspired by Japanese Culture

“My passion for perfume began with a fragrance Claudia gave me a few years ago. She later became my business partner.”

— Mirko Buffini (founder)

He did not like the gift of perfume at first. Yet, given time on his skin, it revealed a character he had never known before. That surprise set him on a journey to find the fragrance he wanted.

MIRKO BUFFINI FIRENZE is a perfume brand from Florence, Italy. Rooted in the city’s craftsmanship, it has drawn creative themes from waka and haiku, Japanese aesthetics, and even Irish literature. At its center is Mirko Buffini, who chooses the inspiration and works with perfumers to shape it into scent.

Contents

Essential Information
The Founder and the Brand’s Beginnings
What Matters to the Brand
An Aside…
References

Essential Information

Founded: 2012
First collection presented: June 2013, Black Collection
Founder: Mirko Buffini
Place of origin: Florence, Tuscany, Italy
Official websites: MIRKO BUFFINI FIRENZE / olfatto, exclusive distributor in Japan

The brand name places the founder’s name beside “Firenze”, the name of his home city, Florence. Buffini is its director and designer, while the perfumes are created in collaboration with perfumers.

The Founder and the Brand’s Beginnings

Working in Cosmetics and Receiving a Gift of Perfume

Before starting his perfume brand, Buffini was already involved in cosmetics manufacturing and ran a company called Aroma Firenze. He had business connections with scent, but the impulse to create perfumes under his own name came less from a business plan than from a single gift.

In 2010, he was moved by a perfume he received from a friend. The giver was Claudia, who later became his business partner. What attracted Buffini was the way the scent kept changing even though it was the same perfume. That experience deepened his interest in perfume itself.

“When I first sprayed it, I hated it.”

— Mirko Buffini

His first impression was unfavorable enough for him to recall it this way. But after about ten minutes, a woody scent appeared on his skin unlike anything in the perfumes he had worn before. When he put it on again the next day, it made a different impression once more. His surprise at these changes led him to explore making his own ideal perfume.

No.31, Born from Approximately 50 Trials

His first fragrance was No.31, or Trentuno. The challenge Buffini faced was how to turn the strongly individual character of patchouli into an elegant perfume. He brought elements such as brandy, vanilla, and chocolate to a material with earthy and woody shadows.

Through repeated trials with a perfumer, the possibilities grew to approximately 50. After spending two years choosing the fragrance, Buffini sold it to friends. The first 100 bottles, simple glass containers placed in unmarked boxes, reportedly sold out in about a week. A search for a fragrance that had begun for himself reached other people. That response opened the way to developing perfume as a business.

His childhood friend Marco Mari also joined to help expand the business abroad. Mari’s family had long been involved in international trade. Buffini conceived the fragrances, and his collaborators helped deliver them overseas. Though the brand began with one founder’s idea, it took shape together with people whose experience differed from his own.

Presenting Twelve Fragrances in Florence in 2013

Founded in 2012, the brand introduced its first Black Collection at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fashion trade fair in Florence in June 2013. It debuted with twelve fragrances that had taken approximately two years to create.

The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi underpinned the ideas. That did not, however, mean making every fragrance conform to a single olfactory style. Some, like No.31, began with the treatment of a material; others emerged from poetry, people, or stories.

For Buffini, a fragrance’s name was not an ornament attached afterward. Exploring old texts, especially stories from the East, he sought to give each name a strong individuality. He wanted each to be distinctive enough to become a separate brand in its own right. This independent thinking behind each fragrance explains the description “a brand within a brand”.

Giving Form to Travel-Inspired Ideas with Perfumers

Buffini’s role is to bring ideas from travel and reading together into a direction for a perfume. He travels the world in search of new smells and subjects, then communicates the character he wants to express and the central scent to a perfumer. From there, they select materials, adjust their balance, and approach the fragrance in his mind.

“It takes about two to three years to create a new fragrance.”

— Mirko Buffini

Buffini said this in 2018. He arrives at a single work through discussions with trusted perfumers and assessments of countless samples. Rather than a perfumer who personally handles every aspect of a formula, he is a maker who determines the creative subject and direction and realizes them through exchanges with specialists.

His interest in Japan is also part of his creativity. Reading Bushidō and Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s Hagakure, he was drawn not only to an attitude toward combat but also to dress and ways of living. His travels in search of subjects for perfume involved encounters with the thinking of different cultures, as well as visits to places where materials originate.

From Joyce’s Literature to a Collection Expressing Italy

H.C.E., presented at Pitti Fragranze in September 2017, grew out of James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake. H.C.E., the initials of a character in the novel, also connect with the words “Here Comes Everybody”. The collection brings these overlapping names and words into the subjects of perfume.

Rather than continuing the Black Collection in the same vein, it opens another story. Buffini saw the new collection as an encounter with new customers and a form of evolution. Taking literary wordplay as its entrance, H.C.E. develops different expressions of scent in each work.

NOÛS COLOGNE appeared in March 2020. This time the subjects were northern, central, and southern Italy. After incorporating cultures from abroad, the brand turned its attention to its own country’s landscapes and ways of life in three fragrances.

FÛGA, Created for the Tenth Anniversary in Japan

In 2024, the tenth anniversary of its launch in Japan, the brand released FÛGA exclusively in Japan on March 20. Buffini, who calls Japan his “second home”, created it with perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour.

Its subjects were memories of Japan: cherry blossom petals drifting along the water, richly green gardens, autumn osmanthus, and snow-covered fields and hills. They also included temples, shrines, architecture, countryside seen from a train window, and urban scenes. These are not a list of fragrance materials, but the images entrusted to the work.

The name FÛGA brings together the Japanese word fūga, meaning refined elegance, and the musical form of the fugue. Instead of a scent bringing back memories, it expresses impressions and emotions held in memory as scent. The connection with Japan that began with an interest in waka and haiku had grown into making a fragrance from memories of places he had actually visited and come to love.

What Matters to the Brand

Creating Fragrances from Waka and Haiku

The “31” in No.31 refers to waka, with its 31 sound units in a five-seven-five-seven-seven pattern. Nature is understood not simply as an abstract subject to contemplate, but as something connected with human emotions. The fragrance brings this idea from a short poetic form into perfume.

The construction of the scent, however, is not simple. No.31 is a complex fragrance centered on patchouli, containing at least 60 olfactory elements. Brandy and chocolate elements, rose and vanilla, and the warmth of resins are layered together. Behind its short name lies a design that balances many elements.

HAIKU is inspired by Matsuo Bashō’s poem, “An old pond; a frog jumps in; the sound of water.” Rather than seeking to reproduce the smell of a pond, it takes as its subject the sensation of a momentary change within stillness.

The fragrance centers on white flowers and damask rose, combining them with berries, cedarwood, vanilla, white musk, and other elements.

Selecting Materials and Maturing Them for 75 Days

Buffini seeks to carry on Florence’s tradition of perfume-making through exploration of materials and attention to detail. His interest in plants cultivated in Tuscan monasteries, including iris, lavender, and rose, is part of this.

Accounts of the early Black Collection describe a method in which aromatic essences obtained from natural materials are left to rest for 75 days, stabilizing before they are blended. In 2018, Buffini also spoke of using matured natural materials as part of his creative approach. He valued not simply obtaining materials, but taking time over how they were handled.

The brand continues to emphasize selecting materials around the world, collaborating with fragrance companies, and meticulous production by hand. Preserving the practices of old workshops while incorporating outside expertise and different cultures: both support the craftsmanship of this Florence-based brand.

NOÛS COLOGNE: Expressing Italian Regions and Ways of Life

NOÛS COLOGNE expresses three Italian regions through fragrances characteristic of each. EAU SAVOIR, for example, uses Tuscan fig to convey a connection with the region where the brand was born. Its composition layers rose and fig with elements of patchouli and vetiver.

EAU, which takes life in northern Italy as its subject, turns to the culture of aperitivo, enjoying drinks and conversation before a meal. It combines bergamot and grapefruit with a scent recalling chilled gin. Here, a place is expressed through how people spend their time, not only through where plants grow.

Though all take Italy as their subject, the fragrances are not gathered into a single landscape. Entrusting each work with materials rooted in a region and life in that region is a characteristic of the collection.

Differences between Collections Expressed in Bottle Design

The No.31 bottle has a simple form, with the brand name and a large fragrance name printed on a broad face of clear glass. A cylindrical gold-colored cap and a thick glass base frame the pale golden liquid. Rather than piling on ornament, the design gives prominence to the fragrance’s own name.

NOÛS COLOGNE shifts the color to a grayish green. Buffini calls it “Leonardo Green”, a color chosen from his interest in Leonardo da Vinci and green as the color of water. It links the container’s color with “EAU”, meaning water, which appears in all three fragrance names.

The more recent L’or d’Oud Collection uses golden motifs for its weighty world centered on oud. The Indélébile Collection takes cities, memories, and desire as its subjects, while the Abyssal Collection explores immersion in the inner self and imperfect beauty. The creative range continues to widen, but it is not all wrapped in the same story. Each collection involves a fresh choice of fragrance themes and how to present them.

The Perfume Collections and Their Fragrances

Mirko Buffini’s perfumes take their subjects from waka and haiku, Joyce’s fiction, the aperitivo of northern Italy, and nocturnal scenes surrounding oud. The brand began with black bottles and has since changed its colors and presentation from collection to collection.

As of November 2026, its five main collections on the Italian website are Black, Indélébile, Abyssal, L’or d’Oud, and Noûs Cologne. Its wider body of work also includes H.C.E., introduced in 2017, the Japan-exclusive FÛGA, and perfumes made in collaboration with U-BOAT.

Black Collection: Fragrances Drawn from Poetry, Film, and Painting

The Black Collection marked the brand’s beginning in 2013. Its shared features are black bottles and an interest in the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi. The individual inspirations, however, extend beyond Japanese culture. Literature, cinema, painting, and mythology offer different forms of expression from which to choose a subject for perfume.

No.31, the first fragrance, takes its name from the thirty-one sound units of waka. Its composition places brandy and chocolate alongside citrus and lavender, followed by rose, benzoin, vanilla, and cinnamon. Patchouli, opoponax, and vetiver are among the supporting elements.

HAIKU also begins with poetry: Matsuo Bashō’s verse about a frog breaking the silence of an old pond. From the sound of water, Buffini imagined a pure, elegant person. He wanted a fragrance that could be worn in any setting, combining sweetness with an impression of intelligence. Damask rose, white flowers, berries, cedar, orchid, and musk are among its elements.

MU grew out of an interest in the concept of nothingness prompted by Wim Wenders’s film Tokyo-Ga. Bergamot, violet leaf, and nutmeg lead to cinnamon, pepper, and black tea, with tobacco leaf, myrrh, and olive wood forming the base.

OG is another fragrance connected with cinema. Its inspiration is Film, written by Samuel Beckett and starring Buster Keaton, with its exploration of seeing and being seen. The composition combines black pepper and ginger, incense and violet, leather and oud.

Other fragrances begin with a person’s image. MOÀ is inspired by the dancer Moa depicted by Egon Schiele. Nutmeg and cinnamon are layered with jasmine, lily of the valley, and lavender, leading to cashmere wood, cedar, sandalwood, and musk.

MOXI takes as its subject the women in the literature of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and Yasunari Kawabata. During its development, Buffini also read about geisha and drew inspiration from their fragrance and makeup. To combine cleanliness and purity with sensuality, he incorporated the scent of sake, which he associated with geisha. In a 2018 interview, he revealed that he had collaborated with a Japanese perfumer, while withholding the perfumer’s name at that time.

Sake and bergamot lead to rose petals and lotus, supported by amber, sandalwood, and musk.

GODS takes the Olympian gods as its subject, combining bergamot, nutmeg, and black pepper with iris, suede, vetiver, and incense. KIRK draws on an old English perfume formula and a forest at night, moving from spices such as cumin, coriander, and caraway to flowers, woods, moss, and leather. SABA turns to the legend of the Queen of Sheba as an image of a captivating person. Buffini imagined a queen in a dress shining like the sun. With coffee, licorice, tobacco, tonka bean, and vanilla among its elements, he sought an alluring fragrance of sweet, rounded spices.

HAECCEITAS takes individuality of being as its subject, combining freesia, orange blossom, iris, marshmallow, cypress, and vanilla. KI is inspired by the Japanese concept of ki, layering citrus, pink pepper, and sesame with rose, magnolia, coconut, and clove. KLITO’ is a floral perfume that moves from aldehydes and bergamot to carnation, violet, ylang-ylang, and rose.

H.C.E.: From Joyce to Human Experiences and Emotions

Introduced in 2017, H.C.E. is a collection derived from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. The initials relate to a character in the novel and can also be read as “Here Comes Everybody”. Youth, gifts, playfulness, and time spent at sea become subjects for individual fragrances. At the Japanese launch in 2018, plans were announced to expand the collection to ten works. YOUTH, FROM, and GIGOT arrived in Japan first, with ZEIT added later.

YOUTH explores the strength and fragility that coexist in youth. Bergamot is combined with Calone, an aroma material that evokes the sea, and a hot-sand accord, followed by orange blossom, freesia, cashmere wood, blue cypress, and mineral musk. The perfumer is Jean Jacques.

FROM takes as its subject the joy of giving and receiving. Created by Antoine Lie, it moves from rosemary to rose, tuberose, and cinnamon, then to patchouli, cedar, and musk. Its name suggests a gift arriving from someone else.

GIGOT expresses the joy of living and an adult sense of play. Wild cedar, sea salt, and sage lead to gardenia and violet leaf, followed by iris and sandalwood. The perfumer is Catherine Selig. In 2018, Buffini said that although he had expected GIGOT to appeal to women, it had also found favor with men. Conversely, SABA, which he had thought of as masculine, attracted women. He found it interesting that fragrances without a prescribed gender could be received in ways that exceeded his expectations. He singled out GIGOT’s combination of elegance and strong individuality as characteristic of his brand.

ZEIT means “time” in German and takes the freedom of the sea and sailing as its subject. Its composition includes lime, bergamot, ozone, artemisia, sage, seaweed absolute, and musk.

In January 2026, Japanese distributor olfatto announced the end of its 30 ml and 100 ml offerings of YOUTH and FROM from H.C.E., and KI, KLITO’, and HAECCEITAS from Black.

Noûs Cologne: Three Fragrances Depicting Italian Life

Introduced in 2020, Noûs Cologne travels through northern, central, and southern Italy. Its aqua-green bottles depart from the Black Collection’s black, while the subjects move from scenes in literature and film toward local plants, drinks, and everyday rituals. The water shared by the three names connects with chilled drinks, plants, and works of art.

EAU depicts urban life in northern Italy and the aperitivo. Bergamot and grapefruit are combined with an accord of gin chilled over ice and musk. The custom of gathering over a drink before dinner is expressed through citrus peel and the impression of cold spirits.

EAU SAVOIR brings rose together with Tuscan fig. Its composition moves from bergamot and rose to fig, then vetiver and patchouli. Rose is treated as a material connected with the history of perfumery, while fig connects with Buffini’s home region. Though the name suggests knowledge, a locally grown fruit lies at its center.

LA CHUTE D’EAU means “waterfall” and comes from a phrase in the title of Marcel Duchamp’s final work, Étant donnés. The artwork reveals a scene beyond a wooden door with two peepholes, connecting with the idea of crossing a boundary into another view. The fragrance lists neroli, a milky accord, ambrette seed, sandalwood, amber, and musk.

L’or d’Oud: Oud with Spirits, Smoke, and Flowers

Presented in golden bottles, L’or d’Oud is a collection of three fragrances centered on oud. Its subject is the meeting of Middle Eastern fragrance traditions and European style. Incense, spirits, tobacco, flowers, and sweet resins are layered around oud.

IT’S OUD combines bergamot and incense with saffron, geranium, oud, patchouli, and bourbon vanilla, bringing fragrant wood together with smoke, spice, and sweetness. CIGAR OUD includes bitter orange, tobacco, rum, incense, iris, papyrus, and ambergris. Its inspiration recalls the ritual of enjoying a cigar in a private club, expressed through spirits and tobacco, a powdery floral element, and dry plant materials.

OUD GÉNIAL, meanwhile, develops from whisky, white pepper, sweet orange, and saffron into rose, incense, papyrus, myrrh, and vetiver.

Indélébile: Remembered Encounters and Nights

Indélébile takes the atmosphere of cities, intimacy, desire, and lasting memories as its subjects. The current range comprises ROSE FATALE, NUIT DE FEU, L’ABSOLU, AMANT, GYPSY GIRL, GINZA, and 69. Encounters and memories of a night are framed like scenes from a film.

ROSE FATALE pairs rose and jasmine with blood orange, bergamot, mandarin, and peach, supported by patchouli, vanilla, and musk. Rather than isolating the flowers, the composition layers them with the brightness of citrus and fruit and a sweet base.

NUIT DE FEU moves from ginger and cinnamon to amber, toffee, fig, vanilla, and musk. The name, meaning “night of fire”, is expressed through spice, sweetness, and the softness of fig.

L’ABSOLU combines cardamom, hazelnut, jasmine, white woods, amber, musk, and vanilla around the theme of simplicity and a gesture stripped of excess. AMANT also uses hazelnut and jasmine, but adds blood orange, ginger, vetiver, and cedar to portray a memorable encounter.

Abyssal: Depth and Lightness, Memory and Forgetting

Abyssal turns toward inner depths through AMNÉSIE, EAU D’ITALIE, and WABI-SABI. Its themes include a sense of depth held together with lightness, the uncertainty of memory, and the beauty of imperfection. The name WABI-SABI also carries forward the interest in Japanese culture present since Black.

AMNÉSIE explores the space between memory and forgetting through pink pepper, galbanum, jasmine, gardenia, vetiver, white amber, woods, and white musk. Its combination of flowers, green notes, and woods is accompanied by a story of almost recalling something in a dream. EAU D’ITALIE moves from neroli, bergamot, and mandarin to petitgrain, rosemary, and jasmine, supported by orange blossom, patchouli, musk, and amber. It is a citrus-and-herbal composition inspired by Mediterranean light.

FÛGA: Memories of Japan in a Single Composition

Released in 2024 to mark ten years in Japan, FÛGA is a Japan-exclusive fragrance created by Bertrand Duchaufour. Its name combines the Japanese word fūga, meaning refined elegance, with the musical fugue, connecting with the idea of gathering several memories of Japan into one scent.

The images described at its launch included cherry blossom petals floating on water, green gardens, autumn osmanthus, snow, temples, and views from train windows. The fragrance entrusted with these scenes moves from almond, bergamot, and ozone to white flowers, heliotrope, and peach, then sandalwood, amyris, and white musk.

The U-BOAT Collaboration: Another Connection with Tuscany

Alongside its own collections, the brand has collaborated with the watchmaker U-BOAT. Based in Tuscany, U-BOAT presents its perfume-making with Mirko Buffini against the background of this shared connection with the region. In November 2026, U-BOAT’s perfume listing shows three names: TUSCANY ESSENCE NEW, CHIMERA PARFUM, and DARK MISTERY PARFUM.

The same listing also includes CHIMERA and DARK MISTERY room diffusers.

DOMUS: Fragrance and Bottle Design for the Home

DOMUS is a home-fragrance line conceived for living, resting, and sharing time with others at home. It treats scent as part of interior design, combining simplicity with elegance. In Japan, it is presented under the name DOMUS ESSENTIIS.

The bottles have a pale brown tint and labels with a texture reminiscent of a book cover. The design is intended to sit quietly within an interior without asserting too strong a personality.

As of November 2026, the Italian home-fragrance range lists six scents: MEUS, ETRURIA, DOMINUS, DIVUS, AURUM, and ANIMA.

ETRURIA takes its subject from Etruria as a cultural background to Tuscany. Black fig and iris meet cedarwood, sandalwood, and tobacco-leaf notes, with the aim of bringing an enveloping sense of comfort to a room.

The name DOMINUS means “master” or “lord”, and the fragrance presents an image of someone honest and responsible. It combines the sweetness of ylang-ylang with marine notes, followed by sandalwood and orange blossom.

MEUS takes the word meaning “my” as a starting point for individuality and reflection. Patchouli and a leather accord combine with Moroccan cedar and amber to give the room a fragrance with depth and strength.

An Aside…

Someone once sat through a day-long lecture to learn about the color of the NOÛS COLOGNE bottle. It was Ōtake (大竹創), a member of the Japanese staff who visited Buffini’s atelier in October 2019.

The conversation ranged from wabi-sabi to Sen no Rikyū, Kuki Shūzō, and Japanese literature, then on to Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance, and Aristotle. Even when he asked for a break, the explanation continued with “just a little more”. Lunch was delivered, and it reportedly took almost the entire day to reach the origin of the color.

Even the color of a single bottle involves this many detours. It is a small story that reveals both the depth of Buffini’s cultural interests and a personality that cannot stop once he begins explaining them.