Fragrance house

Clue Perfumery

Established in 2023 by childhood friends Laura Oberwetter, a perfumer, and Caleb Vanden Boom, a designer, Clue Perfumery is an independent Chicago perfumery whose founders formulate and design its work in-house with collaborators. Oberwetter is the brand’s perfumer and Vanden Boom its designer, with their roles shaping Clue’s fragrance and visual direction. The brand’s creative identity draws on unexpected references, surreal vignettes, memory, and curiosity, translating familiar or unusual subjects into wearable fragrance. Clue launched its debut trio that year—With the Candlestick, Warm Bulb, and Morel Map—and by August 2025 its latest creation was Dandelion Butter, based on a childhood dandelion-and-butter game and the scent of the flower itself. Warm Bulb was a finalist in the Artisan Category of the 2024 Art and Olfaction Awards. It also exemplifies Clue’s concept-driven style, evoking a lamp warming yellowed pages, while Morel Map draws on the damp, green, loamy atmosphere of Wisconsin’s spring morel-mushroom hunt.