The Spiciest of Valentines

Perfectly Poesie.

The Cardamonth collection is a chance to explore the many magical facets of one of my (and it seems your) favorite ingredients, cardamom.

Like Walt Whitman, cardamom contains multitudes; citrus, green, woody, warm spice. So many complementary notes come to mind to bring out the different elements inherent in the note. Fresh but cozy, energizing but calming. It's the joys of winter, after the bustle of the holidays. It’s cozy knits, soft textures, muted pastels paired with earth tones, and vintage elements.

I wanted this year's collection to showcase calm energy. Looking within, staying grounded, finding the moments of beauty and joy that are available to us while not being afraid to hold space for those who need our support. I guess that's a lot to ask of a plant, but I've been thinking more and more about how connecting with the earth is our only way forward.

The fragrance names came from things I've been reading; Carl Sagan, Mary Oliver, Shakespeare. Coquette came from the Tiktok trend (it's not always highbrow around here!). As much as I love puns and wordplay, I've tried to avoid using them in fragrance names because it can come across as gimmicky. That said, I couldn't resist with Pod Person. Perfumistas may recognize that fragrance as my response to Le Labo Santal 33, and the name is a bit of a play on how ubiquitous that scent was for a while in metropolitan areas.

Where She Most Satisfies was an instant hit with the Poesie team. Part of working at Poesie involves being a tester at any moment of the day (it’s a hard life). When trying this one, a team member said, “I like that it's not cloying.” Which reminded me of one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies,” a quote referencing Cleopatra -- and coincidentally, quoted in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which was the inspiration for the first Poesie collection. Sometimes names and ideas sprout from the team just that easily.

I've wanted to develop Invent the Universe for a while. Apple is one of my favorite notes, and I love the Carl Sagan quote, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” That apple pie has been on my mind for a while. Inviting cardamom to play makes it literally and figuratively a bit fresh, while retaining the homey apple pie reference.

Speaking of the universe, cardamom is a note with which I could create a massive collection of scents, but the Poesie team has limited me to six fragrances per collection for practical reasons (sigh, if I must!). Six is literally how many fit on our shelves, for one thing. But it's a good number. If it was good enough for Henry VIII (honestly, it was too good for him, but I digress), it’s good enough for us. Limiting the collection forces me to edit myself, and I think that makes for a more creative and thoughtful collection.

I've had so much fun creating the Cardamonth collection, I'm happy to see that the Poesie community is just as excited to explore the pod life as I am. We literally couldn’t do it without you!

Love, J

(PS: For those of you wanting more cardamom inspired scents, we just released favorites from the We Heart Cardamom collection on – when else? – Galentine’s Day. They are only available for a limited time.)

News from the Poesie Studio: Looking Forward

Many of you may be wondering about our plans for Black Friday this year. In the past, we have offered gifts with purchase. This year, we are busy with some other exciting projects and won’t be able to support providing the same deals as in the past. We understand that this may be disappointing, but we hope you'll continue to support us as we embark on new adventures!

One undertaking that will take a lot of our time through the end of the year is our big move!

For a while now, it’s been clear that the team has outgrown our current studio, and we’re excited to be taking over a bigger space in the same building. This will allow us to grow the team and take on the new projects we’ve been dreaming about for a while.

What does this mean for you, dear reader? In the long-term, we hope this will allow us to continue to deliver the quality service you've come to expect from us while also giving us the physical and creative space to add to our repertoire.

Short-term, this means that in order to accomplish the move and tackle some other essential projects, we will be pausing order fulfillment from December 9th through January 8th.

Any orders processed after midnight EST on Friday, December 8th will be fulfilled and shipped once we return from our move and winter break on January 8th. The website will still be open for shopping and placing orders, so please know those orders will stay safely in queue until we return.

Thank you all for your unbelievable support of this small business! I am incredibly grateful to be able to create new perfumes and bring back past favorites, knowing that they are part of your lives, have scented your special days, given you comfort and confidence, and become part of your story. I am so excited to see what we will create together in 2024.

❤️Joelle

A Perfume Pas de Deux

When I discovered that Nui Cobalt Designs and Poesie were both releasing holiday collections inspired by The Nutcracker, I saw this coincidence for the opportunity it is -- a chance to enjoy the creativity integral to the indie perfume world, and a chance to experience Forest’s interpretation of the source material we both love. 

After a chat where we nerded out about plum aroma chemicals, Fox Mulder’s similarities to Poe, and why not to click on the wikilink for rat king (consider yourself warned), we came up with the fun idea of offering discovery sets of each other’s collections. This is our way of giving everyone the chance to experience the classic story from two vastly different interpretations. Forest’s collection explores the darker side of things from the original story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and my interpretation is a fluffy take on childhood nostalgia and my ballerina dreams. 

During our respective collection releases on November 18th, you’ll find discovery sets of both collections on each other’s sites, and we’ll each have a Nutcracker-inspired limited edition candle by the talented Christina Allen Page at Sihaya & Company. We're excited to support each other in this way, nurturing strong relationships and mutual respect in the indie perfume world, and we hope you’ll have fun exploring our respective takes on this classic tale.

Joelle