Wistful Wisteria
Darren Alan (2025)

Wisteria is one of my favorite flowers. When I find it in bloom, I slow down, lean in, and just become present with it, often under it if growing from a trellis, as if the plant embodies an ancient wisdom. The pendulous clusters are a feast for the eyes, and words do not do justice to their perfume. The wisteria accord does not appear too frequently in fine fragrance; when it does, it often appears as a supporting note. Some soliflores I've smelled, while pleasant, fall short of what I expect.

Darren Alan's Wistful Wisteria, from his Perfume of the Month Subscription series, smells closer to what I experience from Wisteria than any other fragrance I've tested that features it. The clove, the orange blossom, the jasmine, the honeyed facets are all here along with that ineffable quality to the flower's own perfume, which I would guess may have to do with the addition of another fave: heliotrope. Darren has the most sensational bases in his perfumes as well, smelling much like the nitro-musks and the musk xylenes and ambrettes long since restricted in fragrance.

Vintage and Wisteria fiends, do take heed!