Wildflowers and Spring Perfumes

Wildflowers glowing under the sun., originally uploaded by fnkymnky.

As cliché as it is, Spring always means flowers to me. Especially wildflowers. And flowers are very hard not to love. I am yet to meet the person that doesn’t like flowers in some form – in the garden, in a vase, as a floral print on textile, or their scent (bottled or not).

I am also yet to find a perfume that truly captures the scent of wildflowers in the springtime. So I revert to associating more civilized flowers in the perfume context. My trials of tincturing wildflowers did not bear any satisfactory results. So I will stick to the traditional jasmine, rose, orange blossom, tuberose et al for now, and indulge in exotic scents such as champaca, osmanthus, boronia, kewda and other aromas that I wasn’t exposed to until I became a perfumer.

For a long time, Diorissimo has been my favourite perfume, and was the essence of Spring for me. Although I don’t think any less of it, I have grown to love other scents and feel more comfortable wearing them in the Spring or otherwise – when a flowery mood dawns on me. I am hoping to be able to review some of them here before the Spring turns into Summer!

It seems like I have skipped the chilly, brisk moments of Spring here in Vancouver when I was away on my holidays. For a few days it was indeed rainy and grey and needless to say – not particularly warm. But the sunny days are significantly outnumbering the grey ones now, and you can see the immediate effect on the people around – they simply look more energetic and cheerful, and I am amongst them. A nice continuum to a vacation, I must say, so I am seriously considering an annual pilgrimage to the blooming orchards of Israel!

From the innocent lily of the valley of Diorissimo I have grown to admire the intoxicating orange blossom (as in Fleurs d’Oranger), which is perhaps the one single note that brings Spring and happiness to me in an instant. I also love the youthful cheerfulness of full-bodied and seductive jasmine, the soft fresh petals of roses. For a fresh and green feel – I have extended my affection of the floral lily of the valley to freesia, boronia and most surprisingly – to the cucumber smelling violet leaf and to the even more obscure iris.

Neither soliflores nor floral bouquets been my main interest – both as a perfumer and a wearer. I am a known as a chypre junkie and oriental lover, and generally speaking I seek complexity and evolution in my scents, which isn’t often satisfied by florals. But in the few reviews to follow, I will pay a tribute to some of my favourites that I are really special to me.