Diptyque is having a busy spring. The company recently previewed a new look for its niche-classic line of Eau de Toilettes; meanwhile, it has introduced a new “language of flowers” theme for its floral products. The Diptyque website currently includes the “secrets, myths, and legends” behind twelve flowers featured in its personal fragrances and home fragrances; freesia, for example, is “a symbol of femininity and grace…often used during wedding ceremonies. When offered in a bouquet, it embodies the pureness of a new friendship and invites a strengthening of the bonds.”

Ofrésia, released in 1999, is Diptyque’s tribute to freesia. It features an “atypical accord of immaculate freesia heightened by black pepper.” (In its “Language of Flowers” discussion, Diptyque also informs us that “freesia does not yield fragrant molecules so the Nose must recreate its delicate, wholesome scent with accents of jasmine, bergamot and rosewood”; this may or not be a reference to Ofrésia’s composition.) The pepper note in Ofrésia is nose-ticklingly distinct; it gives a little zing to the fragrance’s central notes of green leaves and smooth while petals. In the early stages of the fragrance’s development, I’m also catching a spicy note with an almost cinnamon-like fuzziness…

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