Cindence by Nortean: A Fragrance Born from the Spark of Closeness
Written by Eveline Nagajeva
Nortean, an independent artisan perfume house from Latvia, my homeland, has released a new fragrance called Cindence. I always feel a certain pride when speaking about Nortean, because it is rare and special to see such a distinctive perfume house emerging from Latvia, with such a clear artistic language and emotional depth.
Photo credit: Eveline Nagajeva
I was lucky enough not only to try Cindence, but also to hear the story behind it in person from its creator, Arturs Petersons, the founder of Nortean. The fragrance was presented in Riga during the contemporary art and scent event Scent+Art Festival, where perfume, performance, music, and visual expression came together in one shared experience.
The name Cindence is a symbolic word combination, created from “cinder” — a glowing ember or spark, and “dense” — evoking closeness, tightness, and bodily presence. Together, the word carries the idea of sparks born from closeness, the invisible heat that appears when human bodies, gestures, memories, and emotions come close to one another.
The idea for a fragrance connecting two continents, Europe and South America, came to Arturs during the previous Scent+Art Festival, where he met Argentine artists Maria Zegna and Bruno Mesz. Their encounter developed into a creative connection and, eventually, into a collaboration: Arturs would compose the perfume, Maria would create the performance, and Bruno would create the musical composition. Together, these elements would merge into one multisensory work.
Maria Zegna is an Argentine transdisciplinary artist, performer, video artist, visual poet, olfactory landscape designer, and educator. Her work explores the body, gesture, memory, fragility, and the relationship between bodies and their environments through performance, video, photography, installation, poetry, and scent-based practices.
Bruno Mesz, who created the music for the performance, is an Argentine art-scientist, musician, professor, and researcher at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero in Argentina. His work focuses on multisensory perception, crossmodal correspondences, and mathematical music theory, exploring the relationships between sound, taste, smell, movement, and visual perception.
Image provided by the brand
In this context, Cindence is more than a perfume. It is part of a larger artistic dialogue about the body and its environment, about distance and intimacy, about ritual, nature, and emotional atmosphere.
The fragrance itself reflects this idea through materials with strong symbolic meaning. Yerba Mate and Palo Santo refer to South American traditions of community, ritual, connection, and closeness to nature. Blood orange becomes the central symbol of the composition — a fruit with the color of fire, full of warmth, vitality, and energy. The fragrance is further shaped by petrichor, which adds an earthy shade, while Peru balsam, Amyris, and white pepper give the scent a warm, slightly spicy character, as if sparks are created when people are close to each other.
Arturs mentioned that he had long wanted to create a citrus-based fragrance, but not in the usual bright, joyful, sparkling way we often associate with hesperidic notes. He wanted something darker — a citrus with a noir character. And with Cindence, he achieved exactly that.
The blood orange in this composition is, for me, the most distinctive note. It opens bright, almost fiery. Slowly, the brightness becomes shaded by the smell of damp earth after rain, giving the fragrance an unexpected twist and depth. Aromatic and woody facets appear, along with the noir hue that has become one of the brand’s signatures.
For me, Cindence is a beautifully composed earthy blood orange fragrance — vibrant, symbolic, and deeply atmospheric. I knew almost immediately that I would like it, because I truly appreciate the world Arturs creates through Nortean — thoughtful, poetic, and nostalgic in its own way.