Poetry, Balance, and the Art of Scent with Pissara Umavijani of Parfums Dusita

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to another Fragrance Friday episode. I'm super excited about this one because we are interviewing the founder of a brand that I have absolutely fallen in love with a year. ago and I really really fell in love and we actually gave them an award in our last beauty award so if you guys were checking out our fragrance awards you would have noticed them there and I just love the entire collection I love how they create their fragrances everything is just such a complex like it's just a complex story behind every single fragrance and you can feel it immediately when you open every single one so without further ado I want to introduce you guys to the founders of Parfums Ducida, Pisara Umavijani.

0:40Welcome, Pisara. I'm so, so excited and so honored to welcome you to Skin Anarchy. The pleasure is mine. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. It's so lovely to finally chat with you because I've been a fan of your work and just all of your beautiful creations. I mean, I think that it's rare to find a niche perfume house that is really telling this like complex story and you feel it, you know, When I first tried your fragrances, I felt like, oh my God, a whole world opens up every single time. And so I can't wait to dive into that, but I want to learn more about you. What got you into fragrance and what made you want to go into this world?

1:21So I have been a perfume collector for a long time. And I'm also fascinated by how to compose a perfume with a formulation. So I'm like a self-taught perfumer. and more than 10 years ago, I decided to come to Paris and leave everything behind in Thailand. I then decided to start my own company called Parfum Ducita with the dream to create a perfume that makes people happy. And the word Ducita, it means a paradise, like a level of paradise in Thai that you can live with your own passion and love what you do. So that is how I started the brand, but it was so difficult from the beginning. Yeah, no, I mean, I can't imagine that being easy.

2:08I've had these conversations before where a lot of the founders that are just amazing founders, it's truly an immigrant story. It's a story of like, you know, you have to persevere, you have to do what it takes. I think some of the most beautiful products, especially in the industries of beauty and fragrance and all of the artistic places that we like to, you know, kind of interact with all those artistic industries, they come from this place of like, you got to make it work no matter what. So I really love you come from a drive like that, you know, and I think it shows because you brought up Thailand and I am so excited that you're bringing Thailand to the forefront of perfumery.

2:46I think that a lot of Eastern cultures kind of get lost in this world. What are your thoughts around that? Like in terms of like eastern scent and like you know when you were crafting your fragrances like how did you want to represent the culture of thailand in your fragrances you know for me the culture of thailand is much more deeper than the places or you know the food or you know the beaches that we know but it's in line in the hospitality the smile the thoughtfulness of thai people that i feel like every time I came to Thailand, it's just little attention to the details, you know, the small talk, the people who care about each other.

3:31And that I want to bring that spirit into my perfume and also into my boutique. So when I told my team that, you know what, whoever come to the boutique, we greet them with a smile. We offer them some water. We offer them this little bit of kindness that indeed that Saint Donoré it was very different than this so I really want to bring that spirit and also the extent of Thai culture is also about being compassion so they create a perfume called Era One they talk about the compassionate of elephant compassion in life that is so important in my opinion no that's interesting and I know that your father's poetry plays a big role in people experience.

4:18I really liked that. When I first experienced the fragrances and the line, that immediately caught my attention. I'm a lover of poetry. I have been my entire life. I think many of us are. And I think when you see words combined with fragrance in a specific way, it does elicit a lot in you. And I think you experience the scent differently as well. So tell us more about that. What made you want to put your father's poetry on every bottle? and how do you pick the right poems to pair with the fragrances? So Sidney was young. I grew up seeing my father working so hard. He was writing too late at night.

4:58And I feel like as a daughter, when he passed away, I want more people to appreciate his poems because it was created with heart and passion. So he wrote everything originally in English and it's a very short haiku poem that is quite deep. I think about the idea of each poem and I translate it into a simple word of happiness. For example, I read a poem about love. He talks about love without saying the word love. He said, My feeling for you is like a flower blooming in an empty room. I think about that. I want to create a beautiful white floral bouquet to explain this poetry and that melody de la mou.

5:52So I created one of my first creations. And another story I would like to share with you is that when I was young, I was taking care of my father. and he was very sick with cancer at that time and he was holding my hand that day he said that you know what if we love what we do if one person appreciates what you do you can die happy and he told me that some person when that person really loved his poem and read everything he wrote And he said to me, like, you know, we work with passion and we work for art without expecting. So that also forced me to, like, determine me to also want to bring his work further, you know, when they create Duzita.

6:43That was the first thing I think of. That's beautiful. I mean, I think that I really love the idea of, like, you know, what you said, the poem that you recited. And I think it's such a beautiful way to think about how florals, I think, should be represented in perfumery. For me, personally speaking, I love a good floral scent, but sometimes they can be so overpowering. And so the way you explained it through the poem, it's very, very fitting because that's how a flower should resonate. That's how I see it to be the most beautiful as well, where when you notice a flower bouquet in a room, your senses kind of are drawn to it you know what I mean and so that's how a fragrance that's representing that should open up and feel you know it's the same way so I think that's so beautiful that's a beautiful parallel and so much yeah and I actually want to talk about one of the hallmark fragrances in your line because this is the one we gave an award to last year and I loved it I remember when I first experienced it I immediately fell in love with it was Tonka Latte And I know that a lot of people have noticed Tonga Latte.

7:47It's due recognition on social media. And I would love for you to talk about what was the emotional or the poetic journey that was behind creating it. And what did you really want to bring out with that fragrance? So I would like to show you this is a poetry box of Tonga Latte. And here I would love to read you first the poetry and then tell you. So this is one of my favorite poetry of my father. He wrote, no matter how things have changed, the human heart will beat for warmth and love, such as has been expressed in his poetry. Wow. That's beautiful. Thank you. I love that. Yeah, no, that's, I just, I love his poems.

8:36Like, I love, I love what they elicit, you know? Like, it's just, it's simple, but it gets the point. And it just, I don't know, it really hits home for me. It really touches my heart. And that fragrance is so lovely. Like, it's like a, like, for anyone listening out there, if you guys haven't tried Tonka Latte yet, like, I want, I want you to describe it to them. Like, can you describe it in your own words? Because I'm going to mess it up. I'm not very good at describing fragrances. So I want you to explain all the notes and why you chose them and, you know, the whole profile. So for me, like, you know, I travel a lot.

9:09And I feel like there's no place like home. For example, the more we travel, the more we appreciate that warm morning feeling of being under the blankets. Sipping your favorite cup of latte, like warm drink. and feeling like there's warmth and love that you can feel at the same time. And that is my inspiration in Paris about Tonga Latte. And I want people to feel like when they spray the perfume, they feel a comfort. They feel nostalgia, but they cannot tell how or why. But it's like a comforting feeling of being at home, being loved, being covered by you know the warmness of a hat a baby or someone you love you know and that's i really want to convey in this sense it's beautiful yeah it's a beautiful scent i i get that i get all of that when i when i experienced it for me it did open i think uh got a lot of floral in there as well even though you don't really list much floral in the notes so there is also some white florals inside tonga latte but mainly i i layer with different type of like gumong accord and also tonga beans play the main role here and i feel like tonga bean is very like for me it's a coarsiness in a sense it's a bit caramel nutty at the same time and it's back so well with vanilla absolute yeah so i also create like the warm meal accord that is like warm and then you can feel a soda yes mean then yes it's a beautiful beautiful i think that's why i liked it because a lot of the gourmand like because i'm sure a lot of people have noticed this but like lately especially in the industry everyone is making a milk fragrance everyone is making like you know what i mean like that one gourmand that is like so milky right very electronic you know those are the fragrances that everyone wants to make but i i fell in love with this one because it reminded me of something just so much more sophisticated, you know?

11:14And it was like, you're exactly what you said, where it's a, it's like a warm hug, you know? And it's beautiful. It's like being under a blanket, but at the same time, like it's very sophisticated so you can layer it really easily. And I don't know, I find myself wearing it a lot with like other fragrances I have. Like I, you know, I'll go on with it first and then on the dry down, it just really opens up for me on my skin. You know, if I want to layer on like something that is still more lactonic or more gourmand, I can still do that. But then you can also like pair it with anything else. Like I personally love, like I'm not a huge like white florals person, but I like, you know, certain stuff that has florals, but more citrus notes.

11:51I can even pair it with that and it looks, it just smells beautiful. So I think you really created something that's very, very versatile in a gourmand. You know, I like that a lot. Thank you so much. You make my day. yeah no it's a beautiful fragrance you made my day when I first smelled it I was like oh my god I love this like it's so good um and there's so many actually you know one thing I want to ask you about and this is something I think you do beautifully and I'm really hats off to you as a perfumer because a lot of people can't do this where I tried one of your fragrances pavilion or pavillon yes it is beautiful that is a beautiful fragrance and i love it and i feel like every review i've seen of that fragrance has been by a guy but i as a woman i love that fragrance like it sits so beautifully on my skin and it feels like you know when you first step out of the shower and like you just want to smell very very clean but sophisticated you know so explain that one to us and that one it has no gender in fact it's it's the pavignon door and the idea is about i went on vacation and there was like a place where it was in a britney in the northern of france and it was like a very beautiful nature surrounded by the the forest and a little lake and also there is an island in in the middle so the idea is about like how to speak the pavignon Long door is like a comparison to the human state of mind.

13:25How to stay golden and serene in the middle of changes in life. Like the water moving on the stone, the honeysuckle flower, the oak wood, you know, the Boronia. I want to describe just like a landscape around that. You know, you can feel like the water, you can feel the green floral, the softness of nature. it's beautiful yeah that's I mean that's what it feels like though when I first when I first experienced it it took me to a place I feel like scents can either be aquatic or they can be clean or they can be another family it's very rare when they are able to be multiple things at once immediately when you smell them so when I smelled it I was like this is a clean fragrance this is also aquatic.

14:16This is seaside. This is like me by the ocean somewhere. You know, like I felt like it took me to an actual, like a place in my mind. And so, yeah, I love that fragrance. I think that is truly a masterpiece in your collection. Like I think everybody knows. Yeah, no, I really, really love it. That's what I meant earlier, you know, when we were talking was I feel like it's rare for niche brands to bring this complexity, you know, and that's where I feel like Parfums to see that is so rare in what you're doing and how you're creating this line because I've smelled so many niche brands at this point.

14:50For some reason, niche brands, like there are some great ones, but there are just some ones that just focus on one note and that's all you smell the whole time, you know? And I don't know what that is from the perfume standpoint, like what causes that to happen? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Like what is the process when you're blending the chemistry, when you're working with these different notes and accords, how do you make sure that they're all coming out? I think a performer can play different roles. We can bring people into different places in the world, like to another place, to another emotion.

15:24And I want to do that, you know, not just a scent, but deeper than that, a feeling. And so when I create a perfume, I'm thinking about like what kind of feeling I want to convey. For example, my first perfume that I create in my life. It's called Isara. And the first idea was like the scent of freedom. What does freedom mean to me? How do I think about the scenery of freedom? I was thinking about the time I was walking next to the beach. There was like a pine tree forest and also the white sand beach next to me. And then I could feel the right field behind. I could feel the wind. And I realized that actually freedom is not about being away from everyone, but it's just the state of mind of not thinking about our problems or our daily challenges in life.

16:22It's just the moment that almost meditative and completely free. It's free from ourselves, actually, which is quite deeper than, you know, the more we explore the idea. So I was thinking about what kind of raw material I would like to compose. So I chose the raw material called Clarices, which has a quality of clarity of mind, also aromatic quality. And I blend with the sandalwood and the mask together. So that's how I create. This is like a little sample, like vegetable for the greenness of nature, you know, like little things. But then the perfection of formulation, it also tastes like I am very like artisanal.

17:08So I write everything down, like do trial and error. I do. I love to do this by hand. I taste with my team and this is how we create the perfume. No, I love that. I think you do a beautiful job. And I think that the interesting part is that you have an art for balancing, I think. And I think that's where you can separate great perfumes from the ones that are okay, you know, that you'll use once in a while versus the ones you use every single day. Is that how balanced is a perfume, you know? And I think that's something that I don't ever get to hear much about. I wish more perfumers and I wish more fragrance experts would talk about this is the idea of like what is truly balanced, you know, when it comes to chemistry of fragrance.

17:53because all of us consumers, we don't know what it's like to work with the accords and to work with the separate notes and then combine them in a way that they actually married together. We just know the final product. So it would be so cool to see like behind the scenes of like, I'm so fascinated by that world of fragrance, you know, and perfumery. But yeah, no, I think this is really, I just love your brand because I mean, for me also, I wanted to bring this up was this whole culture thing right because I think fragrance right now the landscape of fragrance is very like focused on Middle Eastern fragrances nothing there's nothing wrong with that I think Middle Eastern fragrances are beautiful they're they're fantastic but we have lost the way a little bit and I feel like brands such as yours are bringing other cultures forward and I would love to see that more what are your thoughts on that I'm thinking about like uh creating a brand is for me it's like reflecting of what we believe in the perfumary and i think for du cita nobody knows me as pisara and for me uh since the first day i create my brand i really want my perfume to speak for for what we believe you know i think perfume now we talk less and less about the beauty of perfume the poetry of perfume the balance and the harmony we talk more about like the training and what people would buy.

19:19And I feel like at the end of the day, we shouldn't forget about that, about the beauty of it. You know, because when I started the brand and now, I think the landscape has changed so much. How so? I think now there is a more division between like artisanal and niche. And when we say niche, there is so many like diversity of brands that's called niche, but then it doesn't mean anything, you know what I mean? Like, then it's very difficult to define because before niche, it used to be like limited and selective with a high quality of raw material. It used to mean like, oh, we want to tell a certain story.

20:05It used to have a certain style that is distinctive. But now I think niche is not limited in distribution anymore. we can see them everywhere like at the airport and you know whenever i travel i can see so it's it's changing the everything became more mainstream but then again i still i see a lot of new waves of perfumery of like a smaller brand emerging also no i agree with you i think there's a huge difference too i think that when you say niche that could be anything that could be me in my basement making perfume you know what I mean and I have a niche uh fragrance there but you're right artisanal is so different and artisanal really does imply artistry you know at the end of the day it implies a lot more focus a lot more you've dug deeper into it and you have like really honed in on your craft and so I mean I think it's really really interesting I mean I think the world of fragrances is shifting and I think that when you explore and you find brands like yours that are beautiful, just as luxurious as like a$700 fragrance, you start to really think about like, what does perfumery really mean?

21:17What are we buying as consumers? Like that question comes up a lot for me now because ever since I started this fragrance series on my podcast, I've spoken to so many amazing people like yourself, you know, that are behind the scenes and you guys are creating fragrances and it made me think as a consumer, I understand the appeal of spending like$1 ,900 on a fragrance because you love it so much or that you really want it. But then at the same time, I feel like it doesn't like you have to start appreciating the craft and the art behind it. And so if you do that, the price point isn't what you're so focused on anymore.

21:51You start focusing on where is the quality in this, you know? And I think if you smell things and a lot of consumers don't do this from what I've noticed, if you, the next time you guys are at a retail store and you're out at any counter, smell things back to back, like right next to each other. You You know, ask the person, like, can you show me three white floral fragrances and then smell them and three different price points and figure out what's the real difference? Why would you pick$300 one versus the$70 one? You know what I mean? So, like, that's where I feel like we can learn a lot from that, you know, is like this idea of truly what is Pissnol.

22:26You know what I mean? You're right. I feel like the perfume are getting more and more and more expensive. because when they started the brand we were under high price and now we are like the middle of the market i think we were like one of the only brands that haven't raised in like five years but simply because like i wanted people to afford to access to the products that's how i think yeah i like that i like that a lot i mean i think that um i mean your brand is beautiful i think that your brand is it's for people who can really appreciate, you know, perfumery and we can really appreciate a great fragrance and something you want to last.

23:08Also, I love the presentation, your packaging and just the way it's presented. It's so beautiful. When I first opened them, I was like, oh my god, this is so breathtakingly beautiful. It just looks so nice like on my vanity. So I love it. No, but I've loved this conversation so much and I love what you're doing and I think the way you're bringing forward, just Thai culture and your background and all of the wonderful, you know, places that you've been and you've experienced. I mean, I think that's so rare and I wish you so much amazing success. You know, Desita is a beautiful brand. And I think for anyone listening out there, if you guys are looking for a new, truly beautifully crafted brand, I urge you to check it out.

23:48Like I said, we gave them an award last year. I'm a huge fan. Check out the fragrances, let us know what you think. And if you want to find the brand, scroll down and you'll see the link in the bio or the link in the show notes of this episode. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to talk to you today. Thank you so much.