Agarthi

Agarthi, marketed as Agarthi Scent Core, is an Italian niche fragrance line based in Milan. It is the first proprietary brand of Aquacosmetics Srl Unipersonale, a Milan distributor of artistic perfumery and luxury cosmetics founded in 2002 that had previously handled other houses' fragrances rather than creating its own [10]. The line was publicly presented in 2023 and built around a single conceit: an imagined journey to a hidden world at the centre of the Earth, told through perfume.

The name derives from the legend of Agartha (or Agarthi), a fabled subterranean kingdom drawn from literature and mythology. On its brand page the company traces the word to Sanskrit, glossing it as "inaccessible." The collection is framed as an olfactory passage through that underworld — what the brand calls a "scent core," a scented metaverse of imagined inner landscapes.

Agarthi grew out of Aquacosmetics, which Barbara Loddo leads as chief executive. Across the available sources Loddo is consistently named as the brand's owner and founder as well as its creative director [5]. The concept was developed by a small team with backgrounds in marketing, design and artistic perfumery; the editor Ermano Picco is repeatedly cited as part of that group, described as a guide or editor on the project rather than a co-founder. Fragrance composition was entrusted to perfumers from the French house MANE.

Sources differ on when the brand began. Italian launch coverage and the Pitti Fragranze presentation place its public debut in 2023 [10][7], while a Fragrantica designer listing records the brand as founded in 2022 [12]. The earlier date most likely reflects an internal development phase; 2023 is the verifiable year the brand was shown and sold publicly.

The brand made its public appearance at Pitti Fragranze 21 in Florence, where a talk titled "Agarthi, the Scent of the Metaverse" was delivered on 15 September 2023 [7]. Aquacosmetics introduced it there as its first artistic perfumery line. A public launch of the Scent Core collection followed in November 2023, opening with four extraits de parfum: Hidden Shores, Burning Core, Floating Lands and Waterways Spell [10].

In 2024 the brand drew industry attention at Esxence, the international artisanal fragrance fair, where Michelyn Camen's Esxence report named Agarthi the event's "best concept" [5]. The line later expanded with two further fragrances by perfumer Julien Rasquinet — Magnetic Magma and Magnetic Maze — bringing the collection to six [9].

Agarthi is owned and operated by Aquacosmetics Srl Unipersonale, headquartered at Via Elba 12 in Milan. The parent company began in 2002 as a distributor of luxury cosmetics, artisanal perfumery and home fragrance, and describes Agarthi as its first own-label brand rather than a distributed one [10]. The line has no separate corporate entity or standalone website; Aquacosmetics produces and distributes it directly.

The brand's central idea is storytelling through scent. Each fragrance corresponds to a stage in a narrative descent toward the planet's core — from a shipwreck onto pristine shores, to floating islands, enchanted waterways and a burning nucleus. According to the company, the experience is meant to transport the wearer into a "scented metaverse," a phrase that recurs across its own materials and early press. Mythology, literature and design sit alongside an emphasis on Italian craftsmanship and sustainability in how the brand presents itself.

The Scent Core collection consists of extraits de parfum, the most concentrated perfume format, presented in 100 ml bottles and positioned at the luxury end of the market at a suggested €220 each [9]. Premiere Avenue, an international retailer, lists the fragrances as unisex and groups them within the chypre, floral and oriental families.

The compositions were created with MANE, the French fragrance and flavour house, with named perfumers including Mathieu Nardin, Cécile Matton, Serge Majoullier, Alex Lee and Julien Rasquinet. Launch coverage highlights MANE's patented Jungle Essence extraction process, an ecological technique the brand says yields olfactory extracts while preserving the character of the raw materials, citing notes such as ginger and vanilla produced this way [10].

Packaging is part of the concept. The bottles use Italian Bormioli glass and caps cast in zamak, a metal alloy the brand presents as recyclable and reusable — doubling, in its description, as a paperweight or candleholder — while the cardboard boxes are designed to be repurposed. The brand also describes a "Conscious Sourcing" system, framed as a social partnership program supporting local resource development and biodiversity protection [8].

Beyond the 2024 Esxence "best concept" mention, the line has received editorial coverage from niche-fragrance specialists, including Cafleurebon reviews of individual scents and Italian beauty outlets such as Reve Beauty and Le Shopping News.

The brand is active. As of early 2026 it offered a six-fragrance lineup and was reported to be taking part in Esxence 2026, with feature coverage published that February [9].