Hey guys, welcome back to another Fragrance Friday episode. I'm super excited about this one because this we are interviewing the founder of a brand that I have absolutely fallen in love with. I discovered them about I think like a year ago and I really, really fell in love and we actually gave them an award in our last um beauty awards. So if you guys were checking out our fragrance award, 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'm going to introduce you guys to the founders of Parfumes Decida, Pisara Umavijani. Welcome, Pisara. I'm so, so excited and so honored to welcome you to Skin Anarchy.
SPEAKER_00The pleasure is my I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01It'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,
like when I first tried your fragrances, I felt like, oh my God, like 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. Like what got you into fragrance and what made you want to go into this world?
SPEAKER_00So I have been a perfume collector for a long time, and I also fascinated by the, you know, how to compose a perfume and formulation. So I'm like a self-tort 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 Parfang Du Sita with the dream to create a perfume that makes people happy. And the word du sita, 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.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I mean, I can't imagine that being easy. I'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. Um, I 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?
SPEAKER_00You 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 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. And 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 comes to the boutique, we greet them with a smile, we offer them some water, we offer them this little bit of kindness. That's indeed that Saint Honoré, it was very different than this. So I really want to bring that spirit. And also the essence of Thai culture, it's also about being compassionate. So they create a perfume called Era One that talk about the compassionate of elephants, compassion in life. That is so important, in
my opinion.
SPEAKER_01No, that's interesting. And I know that your father's poetry plays a big role in the whole experience. I really liked that. When I first experienced the fragrances in 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, you know, in you. And I think you experience the scent diff differently as well. Um, so tell us more about that. Like what uh made you want to put your father's poetry on every bottle? And how do you pick the the right poems to, you know, kind of pair with the fragrances?
SPEAKER_00So since I was young, I growing up seeing my father working so hard. Like he was writing like too late at night, you know. And 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, you know. So he wrote everything originally in English, and it's about like it's a very short, like high court poem that is quite deep. I think about the idea of each poem and I translate into like a simple word of happiness. For example, I read a poem about like love. He said he talked about love without saying the word love. He said, My feeling for you is like flower blooming in an empty room. I think about that. I want to create a beautiful white flora bouge to explain this poetry and that um melody. So 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 poems and read everything that 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 does it. That was the first thing I think of.
SPEAKER_01That's beautiful. I mean, I think that I really love the idea of like, you know, what you said, the 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 when 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 is the same way. So I think that's so beautiful. That's such a beautiful parallel. Yeah. And I 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, it was Tonka Latte. And I know that a lot of people have noticed Tonka Latte, it's getting its 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 the creating it, and like what did you really want to bring out with that fragrance?
SPEAKER_00So 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, yes, 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 be for warmth and love, such as have been expressed in his poetry.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's beautiful. Thank you. I love that. Yeah, no, that's I just I love his poems. Like 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 it 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 how the all the notes and why you chose them and you know the whole profile.
SPEAKER_00So for me, like, you know, I travel a lot, and 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 ha, a baby, or someone you love, you know. And that's I really want to convey in this scent.
SPEAKER_01It'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.
SPEAKER_00So there is also some white florals inside tonga letters, but mainly a layer with different types of like gumong acart. And also tonga beans play the main role here. And if you like tonga beans is very like for me, it's a coisiness in a sense. Yeah, it's a bit caramel, nutty at the same time, and it's maps so well with vanilla, absolute. Yeah, so it also creates like the warm meal accord that is like warm, and then you can feel uh sort of yes in there.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's a beautiful, beautiful. I 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 lectonic, 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. And 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'll go on with it first, and then with 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. So I 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.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. You made my day. Yeah, you make a beautiful day.
SPEAKER_01It'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, what 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 um pavillon, pavillon.
And it's um yes, it is beautiful. That is a beautiful fragrance, and I love it. And I feel like um every 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.
SPEAKER_00And that one has no gender, in fact. It's it's the parignon d'or, and the idea is about I went on vacation and there was like a place where it was in a Brittany in the northern of France, and it was like a very beautiful nature surrounded by the forest and a little lake, and also there is an island in in the middle. So the idea is about like how to stay the paun d'or is like a comparison to the human state of mind, how 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. Yeah. Around that, you know, you can feel like the water, you can feel the green floral, the softness of nature. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. 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. This 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 yeah, no, I really, really love it. Um, 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 perfumes to sida 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. For some reason, niche brands like there are some great ones, but they're 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?
SPEAKER_00I think perfumer can play different
roles. We can bring people into different places in the world, like to another place, to another emotion, and they want to do that, you know, that's not just a sin, 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 is called Isara. And the first idea was like the scent of freedom. What is freedom means to me? How do I think about the scenery of freedom? You know, I was thinking about like the time, it was walking next to the beach. There was like a pie tree forest, and also the white sand beach next to me. And then I could feel the rice feel 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, you know, challenges in life. It's just the moment that almost meditative and completely free, it's freeing from ourselves, actually, which is quite deeper than you know, the more we explore the idea. So I was thinking about like what kind of raw material I would like to compose. So I chose the raw material called claricis, which has like a quality of clarity of mind, also aromatic quality. And I blend with the sandal wood and the mask together. So that's how I create this. But then the profession of formulation, it also takes like I am very like artisanal, so I write everything down, like do trial and error. I do, I love to do this by hand. It has with my team, and this is how we create the perfume.
SPEAKER_01No, 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 good 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, because 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 marry 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 and perfumery. But yeah, no, I think this is really I 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 wrong with 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?
SPEAKER_00I'm thinking about like uh creating a brand is for me is like reflecting of what we believe in the perfumery, and I think for Dusita, nobody knows me as Pizarra, and for me, uh since the first day I create my brand, I really want my perfume to speak 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 trend and what people would buy. And if you 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 uh artisanal and niche. And when you say when we say niche, there is so many like diversity of brands that call niche, but it 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. High quality of raw material. It used to mean like, oh, we want to tell certain story. It used to have a certain style that is distinctive. But now I think this 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 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 or so.
SPEAKER_01No, 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 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? What 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, yeah, 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 it make 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. You know, and so if you do that, the price point isn't what you're so focused on anymore. You 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 at any counter, smell things back to back, like right next to each other. 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 prisonal. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00So you're right. I feel like the perfume are getting more and more and more expensive. Because when they started the brand, yeah, we were under high price, and now we are learned 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.
SPEAKER_01I like that a lot. I mean, I think that um, I mean, your 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. Also, I love the presentation, your packaging, and just the way it's present. It's so beautiful. When I first opened, 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, I've loved this conversation so
much, and I love what you're doing. And I think you're 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 I wish you so much amazing success. You know, DeCeda 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. Like I said, we gave them an award last year. I am 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 will see the link in the bio or the link in the um show notes of this episode. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00I'm so happy to talk to you today. Thank you so much.