When it comes to rice perfumes, the more obvious choice from Diptyque would be L’Eau Papier Eau de Toilette, a gorgeous scent inspired by ink and paper that includes a rice steam accord. But I recently had the chance to sit down with Natalie Gracia-Cetto, the esteemed creator of Lilyphéa — one of my all-time favorite perfumes and my signature scent — and learned that rice secretly plays a role here, too. According to Cetto, the fragrance contains a newer, high-quality vanillin, a molecule typically associated with vanilla’s sweet warmth, extracted from rice. “The result is a powdery vanilla that is less sweet and almost animalistic and more vaporous; it’s very different from vanilla flavoring we are used to in gourmand,” she says, adding, “It makes for an unusual combination with the green, sappy notes of violet stem.” I think of the crunchy, dewy leaves of water lilies when I smell this, which is precisely what I want to smell like every day.
