The scent of lotus flowers is one of my favorite floral aromas, but smelling lotus in bloom is a rare treat. Lotuses blossom three hours “down the road” in Portland, Oregon, but it doesn’t stay warm enough, long enough for them to flower here in Seattle. If you want to know what lotus smells like, find a lotus pond and sniff the newly opened blossoms; do NOT rely on perfumes that mention ‘lotus’ in their ingredients or you will be a Lotus Ignoramus.
Lotus in modern perfumes has been interpreted as a “watery” floral note: light, clean and smelling like fresh, and I mean fresh, water surrounding flowering lotus plants. Describing real lotus fragrance is difficult, but pink lotus flowers smell citrus-y, “green” and “spicy” and they possess deep, sultry floral aromas accompanied by a faint scent of sweet, marsh mud. The perfume of lotus blossoms is strange and intoxicating. (Smell the “living” flower if possible; once you cut a lotus stem the flower’s fragrance fades quickly.)
Guerlain Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus and Pacifica Lotus Garden proclaim their devotion to LOTUS. Both fragrances fail to capture the scent of real lotus blossoms, but there’s more to talk about than lotus in these perfumes…
