Carlos Huber, the Mexico City-born founder of the fragrance brand Arquiste, first traveled to Mérida, the Yucatán capital, on a school outing to the nearby Mayan ruins. Next came a road trip in his early 20s (“very ‘Y Tu Mamá También,’” he says), then a visit several years later, when the honeyed scent of a guava tree lodged in his mind. A 2021 vacation with his now husband rekindled his fascination with the city. They rented an airy Modernist villa — called La Tropical by its owner and designer, Antonio Salazar — with a bedroom that opens directly onto the garden. “It’s a stone city but, when you step inside this house, you’re in the jungle,” says Huber. The couple ended up buying the place from Salazar when he moved back to Spain, and now it has inspired Arquiste’s new fragrance, Tropical: a decadent homage to the home’s surrounding flora. This is Huber’s latest collaboration with the perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux, another Mexico City native who knows his way around the local fragrant plants. Tropical is ripe and enveloping, with notes of guava paste and champaca flower alongside white plumeria, Yucatán lime and a caoba, or big-leaf mahogany, accord. For those who want to experience the scent in situ, the villa is still available to rent — and Huber is working on custom-scented shower products for a full Tropical immersion. $225 USD, arquiste.com.
