Season 8, Episode 15: Pitti Roundup Part Two – The Fragrances That Stopped Suzy in Her Tracks

On The Scent

The hosts continue their deep dive into the Pitti Fragranze fair in Florence, highlighting standout perfume launches that emphasize authenti

Key takeaways

• Reserve en Afrique's 'Voodoo' utilizes ginger and iris to create a sophisticated, woody composition.
• Saint PM's debut fragrance 'Eau de Pensée' uses osmanthus to evoke childhood memories of sun-drying blossoms.

Main topics

• Pitti Fragranze highlights
• Korean fragrance trends

Notable quotes

You are part of the art.

Conclusion

A sensory-rich exploration of how global brands are using scent to pre

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:11) Hello, I'm Nicola Bond. And I'm Susie Nightingale. And this episode is part two of my pity roundup, fragrances that stopped me in my tracks. Speaker 2 (0:24) The last episode had so many listens. Oh my God, people love hearing about this. It's really, it's so fascinating for me as well, because I've never been. Oh, hang on, I'm gonna have a sip of water. Speaker 2 (0:38) It's because I know ahead we have a lot of talking. I've got a really embarrassing tickly Speaker 1 (0:43) cough at the moment. I've got a tickly cough Speaker 2 (0:44) as Speaker 1 (0:45) well. Have you? Yeah. Speaker 2 (0:47) It's really embarrassing. It keeps happening in public and people are really like, they don't look impressed when I cough. People are still scared. Yeah, Speaker 1 (0:56) it's that thing, isn't it? It goes back to sort of COVID and people sort of glancing suspiciously at you anytime you've got a little tickle. I Speaker 2 (1:05) was talking to the local chemist recently. She's this lovely woman called Martina, who I've known for years now. And we were laughing because I remember being on the tube when COVID was just starting and I had some anti-vac and two people looked at me hungrily and one said, where did you get that? As in, like, I thought they were going to nick it from me. It was like zombies, the Speaker 1 (1:25) zombie apocalypse. It's so weird. The day before lockdown, I remember going into Boots at Charing Cross Station. and the shelves were basically empty. And there were two little mini bottles of antibacterial hand gel. And me and Sharon, who's our lovely agent and friend, we both grabbed one each. And we were sort of laughing on it. We didn't know it was going to be the day before lockdown. We're on our way to an event, actually, in Manchester that I was hosting in Debenhams. And we were using this anti-bac. And I think I'd also got some antibacterial wipes in my bag. And I was sort of wiping the tray of the train, you know, the flip down tray on the seats. And we were sort of chuckling along. And then looking back, I was like, oh, Jesus, because we're going, oh, my wife. only two of these left it's really weird and then the next day everything changed oh my giddy aunt honestly anyway anyway nice for times yeah I'm just I'm just so glad to bring this real deep dive because we kind of we we've done episodes before where I've talked about things that I've discovered at Pity for Granzo but I really wanted to make this longer uh specialized episodes because I think it was well firstly it was such an excellent year as I was saying last week but also I just think it's really interesting for people to see this side of the industry that you don't normally get to hear about very much because it's very much yes they do have a public day at Pity for Grancy now which you can attend you can look on their website we'll put a link in the notes but it's very much a place for professionals to meet for press for distributors PRs fragrance store buyers they are there just looking at what is new what is interesting not just what's interesting and new but also what's going to stick what is good enough for them to have on their already very filled shelves and you know collections I just think it's fascinating and you really see those trends emerging. Yeah. Well, I think if you're Speaker 2 (3:36) going, especially someone Speaker 1 (3:37) like Speaker 2 (3:37) you with so many years of experience and of kind of watching how the industry's changed, I see you as a cultural commentator on fragrance as much as anything else. And so, yeah, I love hearing what you're seeing in particular. Very quickly before we do it, I'm wearing Portrait of a Lady today. because I need a bit of strength at the moment. We've got a few things going on at home with the family. Oh my God, it's been the best day because of it. I went to the dry cleaners and our dry cleaner is this lovely woman. I think she's Iranian and she's really, really cool. She's beautiful. She started this little business. It's her own little place and she like men's clothes and makes clothes. She was like, what are you wearing? And then I had another comment from someone else. I was like, it's back. It's been really good today. So, yeah, I'm feeling grateful to it. As you were Speaker 1 (4:32) saying a while ago that you were looking forward to, you felt like you were ready to bring it out again. You hadn't worn it for a few years. Speaker 2 (4:38) And then I think summer came and it was not the right moment. But today's felt really good. I'm like, oh, my goodness, I forgot. I forgot. So, yeah. She's Speaker 1 (4:47) back. She's back. She Speaker 2 (4:49) is back. She's a diva. Speaker 2 (4:54) Now, there's a little paragraph you've written here because you've written beautiful notes as ever. And you've said here, listen for a perfume that smells of roasted chestnuts, fermented tea and Korean seaweed crisps. And then a vivid herbal peach, a new century palm of violet growing in a cold spring garden and a cocoa rich love story that charts the bitterness and sweetness of heartbreak. I mean, get going, Susie. What is all this? Speaker 1 (5:22) Oh my goodness. Right. I mean, bear in mind, I really had to filter through all of my photographs and notes and these are just some of my highlights, but otherwise it would be like part 10. You can have too much of a good thing. But one of the brands that I was really excited to revisit was Reserve en Afrique. I thought these were such interesting ways of telling stories about Africa and African ingredients. Again, bringing that sort of more cultural diversity into the fragrance spotlight and talking about perfume ingredients and landscapes and scent memories that aren't just the fields of grass. And you've Speaker 2 (6:08) been in Speaker 1 (6:09) England. Speaker 2 (6:10) You've been so passionate about this for so long. And it's so good because you were saying years ago you needed to see more of this in the industry. And, you know, we are. Yeah, Speaker 1 (6:20) we are. And it's still, Speaker 2 (6:22) you know, it's Speaker 1 (6:23) still early days. I would love to see more of Speaker 2 (6:25) it. Speaker 1 (6:26) It is really encouraging, I think, that there is this more cultural diversity and also brands that are actually from those places, not just, you know, Parisian. based brands who are then sending you know parisian perfumers um to visit or even if they visit at all and just taking inspiration from these are people who have lived in those countries and know that landscape because they grew up there or they live there now and um that sort of authenticity is is really key i think So, yeah, I really loved Reserve on a Freak. And I was walking around with Scott Blue Blazer guy. He loves this brand as well. So we both made a beeline there. And one of their two new fragrances. Oh, my God. So he smelled it first of all, and he came running to me and he was all excited like a child. Susie, Susie, you've got to. smell voodoo you've got to smell it and I love the name voodoo um so it's woody and it's I guess it's a play on voodoo but it is this very sophisticated very refined composition. And again, that is really building on that sort of almost vintage-y vibe, but sort of elements of classical perfumery that really was my main takeaway of the whole Pitti for Granze trade fair. There is this kind of return to beauty and using traditional materials in an unexpected modern way. So this is very much woody, and you've got incense and balsams and dry woods, but it's got this ginger in it that gives it this living quality. You know how much we both love ginger and fava Speaker 2 (8:16) beans? Speaker 1 (8:17) Because it gives that warmth, but it gives this fizziness as well. It's almost equatiously fizzy, but this is both equatious ginger, like freshly sliced ginger root, but also the dried ginger spiciness is there as well. So you've kind of got both aspects of it. There's also iris, you know, again, that's something I've really been talking about for a while now. So many iris fragrances. There's white flowers in the heart and then this more shadowy, ambery base with a smokiness, these sweet baltoms, this gentle earthiness. It feels very mysterious, almost ritualistic, very spiritual. Speaker 1 (9:03) It's not a hugely loud fragrance. It feels like it's very long lasting on skin. So I think people still want that long lasting quality in a fragrance, but they don't necessarily want everything switched up to 11 all the time in a scent. Yeah, I agree with Speaker 2 (9:21) that. We Speaker 1 (9:21) want the sort of nuance and the subtlety as well. that's kind of how fragrance was. And it's really only in the last, I would say five years or so, maybe a little longer that everything has been extra and puffer and extreme intense, you know, all of these things, sometimes all of those words together in the same fragrance name. And, you know, I think, you know, you reach a level and people think, actually, maybe we could dial it down a little bit again. Speaker 1 (9:53) The problem is it's like brands have to be so changeable and reactive the whole time. I do feel for them. It's a lot, isn't it? It is, yeah. But another fragrance that I was so excited by, this is a new Chinese French house. So they are Chinese, but they live in France. They live in Paris and it's called Saint- PM. And it's Eau Speaker 2 (10:16) de Speaker 1 (10:16) Pensée. So this is their debut fragrance. They've only launched with one fragrance. And that was really important to them because they didn't want a collection of, you know, 25 fragrances that you're trying to remember and get your nose around. They just wanted this one central fragrance to begin with. And it's very personal to the founder, Hayu Yan, which is recalling childhood rituals of sun-drying osmanthus blossoms in a field. which is such a beautiful memory. I mean, we both love osmanthus anyway. Peachy, apricotty floral that can almost go slightly leathery. That sort of real depth, there's so much in just osmanthus alone. I remember when you first introduced me to osmanthus and it was in the Killian Good Girl Speaker 2 (11:02) Gone Bad. And I was like, oh my goodness, Speaker 1 (11:05) this is Speaker 2 (11:05) amazing. Speaker 1 (11:06) Such a brilliant note. And I do think it has this very, reflective quality i don't mean shiny i mean putting you in the mood for memories and you know thinking about your past but with almost this sort of gold and honeyed glow so soft fuzzy images that rise of happy memories so this is a fragrance that treats memory they say something unstable and shifting so it's not meant to be you know, a really solid slapping around the face fragrance. Again, it's much more faded than that. It's like the focus has been turned down. Everything's slightly blurred around the edges. It's got this light filled neroli in there. There's pink pepper and mandarin. It's very green citrus, but then it just yields into this really beautifully honeyed glowing. Yeah, almost leathery softness, but really, really soft leather. Not like,