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Perfume Chat Room, April 16

Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, April 16, and spring flowers are slowly giving way to summer blossoms in my garden. I have several roses that have started to bloom; they are almost all very fragrant, as most of the ones I grow are David Austin English Roses, which he hybridized over decades to regain the strong scent and old-fashioned form of the Old Roses. In the 20th century, many hybridizers bred for color and shape, which gave us so many beautiful, classic hybrid tea roses like Chrysler, John F. Kennedy, Peace, etc., but they weren’t as fragrant as their forebears. Other hybridizers bred roses for large-scale landscaping, like the Knockout Roses, but they are barely fragrant at all. So Mr. Austin’s goal was to take some of the best qualities of 20th century roses, like disease resistance, innovative colors, and repeat blooming periods, and marry them to the shapes and scents of old classics like the “Old Roses”.

This week, I was delighted to get in the mail my long-awaited sample of a new, soon-to-be-released perfume from Parfums Dusita, which is the subject currently of a naming contest! Perfumer and brand founder Pissara Umavijani invited members of the Eau My Soul group on Facebook to suggest perfume notes we’d like to see combined, then she chose from among those and created a fragrance. Now members who took part in suggesting the notes have been sent a generous sample of the unnamed fragrance and we get to submit up to three suggestions for names! The winner will get a large bottle of the fragrance.

I just love this project. Ms. Umavijani has done something like it before in 2019, when she launched what became Splendiris, a name I love and a very beautiful fragrance. I think that fragrance was the subject of a similar contest for readers of Fragrantica, if I recall correctly.

This new scent has notes of: petit grain, Rose Damascena, tuberose absolute, white freesia, Jasmine Grandiflora, oak wood, oakmoss absolute, sandalwood, vanilla absolute, and patchouli. I haven’t tried it yet as I wanted to wait until the weekend when I could focus more on it and less on work. Don’t those notes sound gorgeous, especially if (like me) you like florals?

P.S. WordPress has just informed me that this is my 500th post on Serenity Now: Scents & Sensibilities! Wow, that feels like a lot, but it has been so much fun and still is. Thanks for joining me on this blogging journey!

12 thoughts on “Perfume Chat Room, April 16”

  1. WOW OH! 500 posts is a huge milestone. Congratulations.
    The winter flowering gums are currently giving us a show here in Sydney and at night walking the dogs we hear the fruit bats chittering and flapping among the branches. Sometimes one swoops out of a tree and quite low in front of us and scares the shit out of me. They’re big.
    Have you tried any of the Goldfield & Banks fragrances? I’ve just bought a bottle of Velvet Splendour. It’s a sensational aldehydic floral in the Fine French Fragrance style of bygone eras. I think you’d love it.
    Portia xx

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  2. 500. Wow, that’s really something. Applause all round. That new Dusita sounds utterly fabulous. It will be interesting to know what it’ll be called. I too have a very soft spot for big florals. Let us know how you like it. On a side note, I had a spray of Ariana Grande Cloud yesterday. Nope. Not for me. It is definitely very similar to Baccarat Rouge 540, which to my nose is just a big ol’ stink bomb. I took my jacket off in the car afterwards and left it in it overnight and this morning when I got into the car I was met with a very unpleasant odour. I need to wash the jacket before I can wear it again. That stuff is potent.

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  3. Congratulations on your 500th post! From Dusita I’ve only tried Issara, but this new fragrance sounds beautiful and chypre-y. I love the idea of crowdsourcing the naming process as well as the fragrance. How fun! I’ve had a terrible headache and rash (maybe from vaccine?) the last few days, so all fragrances seem repulsive to me at the moment. However, I just ordered Vespero by Maison Anonyme, and I’m excited to receive it! I tried a sample and loved the bright floral accent behind the incense. It is quite sheer and cool, and is one of those scents that immediately feel personally generated, as if it came from your own chemistry. I like that, as I have a hard time with ‘beast’ perfumes. That said, when I find one I love, like 1000, it’s different, and I’m willing to take on the big glam. But that is rare, I think because I grew up with a mother who way overdid all fragrance, from hair products to perfumes to air fresheners. Hard to undo those associations, especially when they feel toxic on so many levels.

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  4. Congratulations on your 500 posts milestone! I know that it’s a lot of work.

    It’s an interesting Dusita project, but I know that I’m bad with either thinking of notes to build perfume or trying to name it. So, it will be interesting to see what people will come up with.

    I love floral perfumes, but tuberose is usually not my friend. I’ll give it a try when I get a chance anyway.

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