So… how did Bastardo come into existence?
Truth is, I never really cared much for Bay Rum. Shave soaps, aftershaves, I tried a few and it just wasn’t for me. But people kept asking for my own take. At some point, it started feeling like a challenge.
I discovered something that completely shifted my perspective very early on: I actually love the smell of St. Thomas Bay essential oil. The real thing. And yet, hardly anyone seems to use it. Most go for clove oil, or approximations built around spice blends. It makes sense, to be fair, they overlap a lot in their chemistry. But still… once I sourced and smelled the genuine oil, there was no going back.
From there, it was about finding the right citrus companion for it. I went through all of them: lemon, lime, mandarin… In the end, orange won. It brought this sweet glow to the opening that just made everything click. I leaned into it, threading that orange character deeper into the heart and base of the fragrance with related materials, trying to carry it throughout the entire structure.
Then came the rum accord. I already had a foundation from something I’d built earlier for Mazagran, so I reworked it for this new context. From there, it became a matter of layering a few more spicy materials, small accents to lift and support the bay itself.
Almost without thinking, I reached for vanilla and patchouli. I tend to do that. They just work. They rounded the composition. And to keep everything from feeling too dense, I introduced some transparent woody notes. Just enough to let it breathe, to give it structure across different formats, especially in the aftershaves and the Eau de Toilette.
Eventually, I realized I had something I genuinely loved. A Bay Rum after all, but one that felt like mine. What I didn’t have yet was a story.
The obvious route would have been pirates. That’s where most people go, and I get why. But it felt too easy. So I looked to Portuguese history again, its close enough with our long relationship with the sea and the age of exploration.
At first, I drifted toward the well-known figures, the celebrated names. But the more I thought about it, the less convincing it felt. Those historical figures weren’t the ones reaching for Bay Rum, I don't think.
And then it hit me. What about all the others?
The ones history forgot. The thousands who sailed not for glory, but because they had little left to lose. Men without inheritance, without family names to protect. Bastard sons. Drifters. Adventurers out of necessity more than ambition.
Those were the ones who made those journeys possible.
After that, everything moved quickly. The label, the visual direction. It all fell into place in a matter of days. Like the idea had been waiting there all along, just needing the right moment to surface.
