Founded by Xiao Lan, Tombstone follows a life from a child’s first grasp of death to the body returning to the soil, in five extraits with hand-carved marble caps left blank
Each Tombstone bottle is closed with a cap carved from natural marble. The stone is left blank, like an unmarked gravestone, and the veining makes every piece different. The bottles themselves are made by hand and set in sculpted containers of paint, cement or sand.
Tombstone perfume: a niche fragrance brand about death, with marble bottle caps
Tombstone is a perfume brand built on one subject: dying. Its collection has five fragrances, each tied to a stage in a person’s relationship with death, from a child’s first grasp of it to the body returning to the soil. The brand presents them as works of olfactory art.
Who founded Tombstone perfume: Xiao Lan, Yenchi and Tan Shuai
The perfumer Xiao Lan, who trained in France and the United States, founded the project in 2024. Two of the five scents are by other perfumers, Yenchi and Tan Shuai. All five are sold as 100ml extraits de parfum, and a discovery set gathers the collection in smaller formats. The founders say they want to widen what a perfume can express and to help people move past the fear of death.
Tombstone 3 Feet 5 perfume: notes of heliotrope, mimosa, iris and smoke
The sequence opens with 3 Feet 5. The title is the average height of a child between five and seven, about 104 centimetres, the age at which many people first understand that life ends. Heliotrope, jasmine and mimosa sit over iris and smoke, with milky accords meant to recall a child’s skin. Part of the proceeds supports children in difficulty.
Tombstone Sing at My Funeral and Sweet Coffin: perfume notes and perfumers
Sing at My Funeral is by Yenchi, who imagines her own funeral as a cheerful occasion. It opens on mint, honey and neroli, moves to jasmine, lily of the valley and iris, and settles on cedar, vetiver and amber.
Sweet Coffin is Xiao Lan’s, and she describes the coffin as a home to return to. Nutmeg runs through the composition, from willow bark and apricot at the top to aged cedar at the heart. The base is an accord of stagnant water, and the result is dusty and musty.
Tombstone No Need to Come by and Evergrow: perfume notes, from myrrh to oakmoss
No Need to Come by is by Tan Shuai, who sees death as a journey made alone, without visitors. Mint, thyme, pepper and turpentine sit over myrrh, frankincense and jasmine, with patchouli, tonka and sandalwood in the base.
The cycle closes with Evergrow, a green chypre about decomposition feeding new growth. Bergamot, galbanum and vine lead into rose, iris and labdanum, over patchouli, oakmoss and musk.
Tombstone perfume awards: Barcelona Perfumery Congress, Arte Laguna Prize, CFA Grasse
The Barcelona Perfumery Congress named Tombstone Most Innovative Brand 2025, and the brand made the first selection of the 2025 Arte Laguna Prize in Venice. At the CFA awards in Grasse it received Arty-Conceptual Perfume of the Year from a jury chaired by Jérôme Viaud, mayor of Grasse, and the perfume historian Elisabeth de Feydeau
