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 Saturday, April 12, and I have another new fragrance by Parfums Dusita! The latest is Cavatina, a beautiful tribute to vintage muguet fragrances like Diorissimo, Muguet des Bois, and others. Listed notes include: top notes of bergamot, litsea cubeba, petit grain; heart notes of lily of the valley, tea rose, jasmine; base notes of ambrette seed, Siamese woods, vanilla. Additional notes mentioned on the website, presumably used to create the lily of the valley accord, include tuberose, ylang-ylang, heliotrope, and aldehydes.

As longtime readers here know, I adore lily of the valley flowers and fragrances, and in past years I’ve amused myself by writing a “May Muguet Marathon” series of daily posts during the month of May. (In other years, I’ve done a “Roses de Mai” Marathon).

I was curious about the litsea cubeba listed, and it turns out that it is an evergreen tree or shrub native to China. According to Eden Botanicals, its essential oil has “an intense, clean, fresh, sweet-green, lemon-like aroma with light woody-floral undertones.” Seems like a perfect ingredient to create a Muguet fragrance, since lilies of the valley share some of those fragrant traits.

Cavatina is a lovely muguet. It is light, floral, elegant. The bergamot gives it a little zing at the start, and it must be the litsea that adds the lemony note that I do smell in real lilies of the valley. The muguet accord is very realistic, even without the molecules that made Diorissimo a legend but are now banned or can only be used in tiny quantities.

I won’t be doing a May Marathon this year, as I’ll be traveling (including a trip to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show! If I did another marathon series later this summer or fall, what would interest you most?

Happy Passover to all who celebrate it!