Dilettante - fruity and floral and rapturously beautiful

^{Photo: Courtesy of Hiram Green Perfumes}

Hiram Green, the Canadian niche perfumer based in The Netherlands, emailed a few weeks ago to say that he was coming to Toronto to visit family and would I like to meetup with him for lunch again? Absolutely, I answered without missing a beat.

Mr. Green was born and raised in Toronto and attended the prestigious Ontario College of Art and Design. After graduation, he moved to London, England where he worked in many perfume stores, before opening his own niche shop called Scent Systems. Over time, he developed an interest in natural perfumery so he closed Scent Systems, moved to The Netherlands and taught himself how to make perfume.  He soon started making natural fragrances in small batches, and in 2013 he launched his first fragrance: the highly acclaimed Moon Bloom.

We met for lunch, and while it is always good to catch up on each other’s personal news, what I was excited to talk about was Hiram’s latest fragrances: Dilettante. Luckily, he’d brought samples for me to try. While I was busy smelling my wrist, Hiram mentioned that he loves orange blossom and neroli based perfumes and this was the inspiration behind Dilettante. I perked right up. Orange blossom and neroli are favourite notes of mine, so I pressed him for more details. He said that Dilettante was a perfume he’d originally created for himself. After wearing Dilettante every day for the past week, I’d say he made it for me.

The Hiram Green Perfumes website says that Dilettante was “Inspired by such simple pleasures as a stroll through a luscious garden after a rain shower, Dilettante is an enchanted and light-hearted celebration of summer

Based on a triptych of orange flower, petitgrain and essential oil of orange, Dilettante is an all-natural fruity and floral eau de parfum that is fresh and sweet throughout.”

Those are all the notes that are listed. Like many perfumers, Hiram is guarded with the notes, even over lunch with a friend in Toronto, and while it can be frustrating, I respect him, and others like him, who want you to have your own experience of their fragrances when you wear them.

Besides, Dilettante is so rapturously beautiful, that it really doesn’t matter if you know it has or doesn’t have musk or honey or beeswax in it.

On me, Dilettante opens, full on with the glorious, heady scent of orange blossom – floral and sweet, lush and indolic – this orange blossom is true to nature and it’s at the forefront - it’s not hidden, shadowed or shy. For me, it is the smell of sunshine, of summer, of happiness. Over time, petitgrain, gives it a gorgeous green aspect that seems to extend the orange blossom before it gets warm and spicy from cinnamon. Orange oil makes it sweet and fruity and keeps it going on and on, right to the drydown. On me, there a waxy phase, which gives it a texture I like. The citrus is balanced at the base by warm, resinous, ambery, tolu.

Dilettante’s drydown is incomparable.  Fruity, floral and softly resinous, with no bitterness or citrus tang. It’s so refined and, yes, uplifting, that it’s more than a summer fragrance and so balanced that it can be worn by a man or a woman.

Over lunch, Hiram said that the trick with Dilettante was to make a fragrance that was a bit different from what he already had and liked, that was all natural and that smells great. Easy-peasy trick for a star like Hiram Green to pull off.

Check out Dilettante in our Shop.