Reflections: 100 posts

The first time I smelled White Peony by Dolna Sofiya, I had the sensation of stepping into a memory I hadn’t lived yet—a sunlit room, lace curtains swaying, petals scattered on a linen tablecloth. The perfume didn’t just unfold, it breathed, as if it had been waiting to be noticed: a gauzy blend of rose buds, green leaves, and the faintest trace of nectar. But what stayed with me wasn’t only the scent, it was the sense of intent. This was no imitation. It was a statement: delicate, yes, but deliberate.

Its creator, Sofiya Dolna, is part of a quiet, brave movement blooming in Ukraine, one where scent becomes not just personal expression, but a cultural declaration. In the lingering wake of White Peony, I sensed something larger stirring, a new kind of perfumery, rooted in emotion, resilience, and place. And today I want to tell you about Sofiya and about what it means to make something beautiful in a time of rupture.

Perfume

White Peony opens like a page in spring light, soft, yet vivid. The initial impression is the brightness of green tea and crushed flower petals, fresh and dewy. The green facets are pronounced, which initially gives the fragrance sharpness. Yet as the composition evolves, the verdant notes soften into a sweet, creamy floral accord. There’s something restrained about the sweetness, as though Sofia didn’t want to romanticize the flower but instead to show it in its quiet strength as well as a fantasy of a blossom. Think a Monet painting of a peony, rather than a high-resolution photograph.

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People often come to me, students, perfumery hopefuls, artists halfway through a formula and a mild existential crisis. Inevitably, they arrive with this question:
What does it mean to be a perfumer? Am I allowed to call myself one if I’m self-taught? If I don’t have a professional lab?

Let’s be honest: this world can be a little obsessed with gatekeeping, as if the right to create scent were handed down from Mount Firmenich on stone tablets.

So let me offer this, not as doctrine, but as lived experience.

I trained as a perfumer at IFF. I’ve studied and worked with legends like Sophia Grojsman, Dominique Ropion, Maurice Roucel. I’ve created fragrances in labs that featured the rarest raw materials, surrounded by shelves of cutting-edge captives and supported by extraordinary teams. I know what it’s like to formulate with everything at your fingertips.

But I also know what it’s like to create with very little. I’ve been taught to compose fragrances on a shoestring budget, with limited access to materials. And I’ve seen other perfumers do the same: crafting something resonant and exquisite not in spite of constraint, but because of it. Maurice Roucel, for instance, has built breathtaking perfumes from formulas that read like haiku. Sophia Grojsman worked magic on a single-digit budget. There is no correlation between the number of raw materials or even their quality and the greatness of a fragrance. Sometimes, it’s precisely the restraint that makes the structure sing.

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До мене часто приходять люди — студенти, початківці, митці, які перебувають десь посередині формули й легкої екзистенційної кризи. Вони, зрештою, ставлять одне й те саме запитання:
Що означає бути парфумером? Чи маю я право називати себе парфумером, якщо я самоучка? Якщо в мене немає професійної лабораторії?

Будьмо чесні: цей світ трохи одержимий поняттям “допуску”. Ніби право творити аромати було передане людству з Гори Firmenich на кам’яних скрижалях.

Тож дозвольте мені запропонувати відповідь не як догму, а як власній досвід.

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“Bring, bring that musk-scented wine! That wine is the key to joy, and it must be mine… that wine is the key that will open wide the door to the treasure of rapture’s rich and varied store…” The medieval Persian reader scanning these lines by the 12^th century poet Nezami would have understood instantly the subtle nuances of the word “musk.” Since natural musk was black, the reader would have envisioned a dark potion. Also, musk was considered the most sumptuous and alluring of scents, and musk-scented wine would surely be the libation to intoxicate one to the point of ecstasy. Most importantly, however, musk evoked seduction and passion, and in Nezami’s masterpiece about star-crossed lovers, Layla and Majnun, musk is the scented leitmotif. The nights are musk scented and so is the beloved’s hair. Even the dreams about her carry a musk-tinged sillage.

Several centuries later, we also understand the association of musk and seduction, but since natural musks have been replaced by synthetic versions, the darkness of musks has paled. Natural musk, such as the one referred to by Nezami, consisted of the dried secretions from a sac in the abdomen of the musk deer. Obtaining several grams of musk took the life of a dozen animals, and when the creature became endangered to the point of extinction, the use of natural musk became prohibited. Today’s musks are more likely to be the so-called white synthetic musks, which smell soft, cuddly and evoke laundry, rather than lovemaking.

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A few years ago, I wrote an article about winter fragrances for the Financial Times. I enjoyed working on that piece and I still like rereading it, but the kind of winter wonderland fantasy that I described in it is no longer part of my reality. The last time I strolled through a snowfall was when I was visiting Bulgaria four years ago. There was a fleeting appearance of snow in late November in Brussels. These days it feels like spring, rather than winter. My daffodils are sprouting. The buds on the trees are full and green. Winter is only a distant memory.

Does it mean that winter scents are anachronistic? In fact, I crave such aromas more than ever. In that spirit, I’m sharing my article and my ideas on recreating winter splendor.

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