Parfums Dusita: Where Poetry and Fragrance Meet in a Heavenly Paradise

“I keep creating these perfumes to keep my father’s poetry alive. His words still breathe within the fragrances I make.”
— Pissara Umavijani (founder and perfumer of Parfums Dusita)

Basic Information

Founded: 2016

Founder: Pissara “Ploi” Umavijani

Official website: parfumsdusita.com

The Founder and the Origins of the House

A Girl Raised Amid Poetry and Gardens in Bangkok

Bangkok in the 1990s. A girl was born into a home filled with intellect and art. Her father, Montri Umavijani (1941–2006), was one of Thailand’s foremost scholars of English literature and poets. Fluent in English, French, and German, he studied abroad as a Fulbright scholar, earned master’s and doctoral degrees in English comparative literature, and continued writing poetry while teaching English literature at Thai universities. His poetic style is said to have resembled Japanese haiku, conveying the greatest depth in the fewest words.

“My father always carried a notebook, recording his impressions of his travels, the people he met, and moments that touched his heart. His passion for writing was the thread that ran through his entire life.”
— Pissara Umavijani

The garden of Pissara’s childhood home was filled with jasmine, champaca, and frangipani. In a house lined with bottles of Guerlain’s Mitsouko and Eau Sauvage that her father brought home from Paris, fragrance was “part of everyday life.”

“My earliest memory of smell is the perfume my father wore when he held me in his arms.”
— Pissara Umavijani

Her father’s poetry and the allure of Parisian perfume began to take root within Pissara. “My father’s stories of his travels and his poems made me dream of going to France one day.”

After studying communications and social psychology in Bangkok, she earned a master’s degree and spent a period working in marketing at a medical faculty. Yet despite coming from a family of academics, with a mother who taught philosophy and a brother and aunt who were also professors, she chose a very different path.

Loss and a Promise: Her Father’s Death as a Starting Point

In 2006, Montri died at the age of 65. The day before his death, he called Pissara to him and asked her to write down the books he had authored. There were at least twenty.

“When you work hard, if even one person in the world appreciates your work, you can die content,” my father told me, holding back tears.
— Pissara, recalling her father’s words

Whenever she picked up her father’s poetry, Pissara felt “as though it had been written for me.” She promised herself that she would “bring his poetry back to life so that people around the world could read it.” But she did not yet know how to fulfill that promise.

The answer would come in an unexpected form.

Paris and a Fateful Encounter with Jovoy

After her father’s death, Pissara became increasingly serious about collecting vintage fragrances. With a friend living in Thailand, she began ordering raw materials and teaching herself perfumery.

“We simply wanted to unlock the magic of fragrance. We ordered perfumery materials together, compared their smells, explored proportions, and kept experimenting through trial and error.”
— Pissara Umavijani

In 2011, she went to Paris to enroll at the ESMOD fashion school. At the time, formal perfumery schools offered no international programs, so she continued her own perfume projects while studying at ESMOD.

In Paris, she became a regular visitor to the renowned niche perfumery Jovoy. She examined every corner of its displays and lost track of time smelling the bottles. Eventually, she came to know its founder, François Hénin.

“When I met Mr. Hénin, he asked me to bring him what I was making. His encouragement gave me the confidence to decide to launch my own brand.”
— Pissara Umavijani

Pissara returned to Thailand to work toward launching the house. What she had imagined would take three months became a three-year undertaking. She carefully refined the concepts for her first three fragrances, Issara, Mélodie de l’Amour, and Oudh Infini, connecting them with the themes of freedom, love, and travel in her father’s poems.

Meeting a Mentor: Words from Chantal Roos

At the luxury management school she attended after graduating from ESMOD, Pissara met a living legend of the industry. Chantal Roos (in Japanese), renowned as a driving force behind celebrated fragrances such as Opium and Yves Saint Laurent, came to give a lecture.

“Chantal told me, ‘Ignore the people who do not believe in you. Just follow your dream.’ She had remained unshaken by the criticism when Opium launched. I cannot tell you how much courage her example gave me.”
— Pissara Umavijani

Roos stressed the importance of a brand’s “pillars”: a story worth telling, the finest raw materials, and attention to detail. Pissara approached her for personal advice after the lecture, and Roos became a mentor and source of encouragement.

The House’s Debut: Jovoy, Paris, 2016

Parfums Dusita officially debuted in 2016. The setting was Jovoy at 4 Rue de Castiglione in Paris, the very shop where Pissara had once lost herself in fragrance. Before a shelf holding three creations, the world of niche perfumery encountered a new voice.

The Thai word “Dusita” means “heavenly paradise” or “a state of bliss.” It describes a state of being, rather than simply a place.

“Dusita is a paradise you can inhabit within yourself, here and now. A place of passion and happiness: that is Dusita.”
— Pissara Umavijani

In 2018, the house opened its own boutique at 11 Rue de la Sourdière, near Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris’s first arrondissement. In 2022, it also began offering perfume-making workshops under the name Atelier Dusita.

What Defines the House

A Perfumery Philosophy: Translating Poetry into Scent

Every Dusita fragrance takes Montri’s poetry as its “source of inspiration.” Pissara explains, however, that the aim is not to reproduce a poem literally, but to translate the “emotional colors” it evokes into fragrance.

“Poetry and fragrance are very similar. Neither can be seen. Neither can be held in your hands. Yet both can change what you feel.”
— Pissara Umavijani

Each creation is accompanied by a passage from the poem by her father that inspired it. Sometimes, once a fragrance is finished, she turns the pages of his poetry, asking which words resonate with its feeling. At other times, a poem comes first and sets the fragrance’s development in motion. Pissara describes it as “not a marketing decision, but a daughter’s response to her father.”

Pissara also paints a watercolor illustration for every scent. These images, visual expressions of the fragrance’s setting and the poem’s world, are enclosed with each perfume. The union of scent, poetry, and painting lies at the heart of the Dusita universe.

A Commitment to Materials: Working with Perfumery Specialists in Grasse

All Dusita fragrances are manufactured by Accords & Parfums near Grasse, France. Pissara entrusts the company with formulas she has blended herself. When her first formula came back from its factory, she was astonished that it was “almost something entirely different from what I had made in Thailand,” bringing home the difference made by professional craftsmanship and the quality of the materials.

Among her favorite materials, Pissara names May rose (rose de mai) from Grasse, jasmine sambac from India, Calabrian bergamot, Indonesian patchouli, Haitian vetiver, French orris butter, and Madagascan vanilla.

All Dusita perfumes are cruelty-free, with no animal testing, and vegan. The house is also committed to ethical sourcing and responsible production.

Where Thai Elegance Meets French Refinement

Dusita’s distinctiveness lies in combining “the refinement of classical French perfumery” with “Thailand’s traditional culture of fragrance.” For centuries, natural aromatic materials such as rose, jasmine, benzoin, beeswax, and sandalwood have been used in Thai ceremonies.

“In Thailand, fragrance is not separate from life. Jasmine garlands, petals floating on water, smoke rising from temple incense. No one called it ‘olfactory education,’ but that was where everything began.”
— Pissara Umavijani

In Pissara’s own words, “Thailand gave me emotion and warmth; Paris gave me refinement and discipline. Dusita was born at their intersection.”

The Fragrance Range

The First Three Creations, Launched in 2016

• Issara: Dusita’s first perfume. A neo-fougère, a fragrance family built around fern-like effects, on the theme of “freedom.” Centered on natural materials such as pine, clary sage, oakmoss, and vetiver, it evokes the liberating feeling of southern Thailand’s forests. Its inspiration is her father’s poem, “Where a tree once stood / there is now a shelter for ancient rains.”
• Mélodie de l’Amour: A white-floral fragrance inspired by her father’s poem, “My feelings for you / are like flowers blooming in an empty room.” Gardenia, tuberose, and jasmine combine with sandalwood and birch. The name alludes to Edward Elgar’s Salut d’amour. It won Fragrance of the Year at the 2017 Art and Olfaction Awards.
• Oudh Infini: A deep fragrance on the theme of “travel,” featuring civet, balsamic notes, oud, and rose de mai. It was later discontinued as the house matured.

Creations That Marked the House’s Rise

• Erawan: A green fougère inspired by a nature park sharing the name of Erawan, the elephant god of Thai-Hindu mythology. It won Breakthrough Fragrance of the Year at the 2018 FiFi Awards. It has enjoyed lasting popularity in Japan since its introduction there in 2023.
• Fleur de Lalita: A 2018 creation with an intense floral scent, sometimes called a floral “bomb.” It is one of Pissara’s bestsellers.
• Le Pavillon d’Or: A tribute to Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan, Lake Guerlédan in France, and the waterside pavilion at Thailand’s Aisawan royal retreat. Its unusual combination brings together Mentha citrata, fig leaf, frankincense, thyme, and orris butter. It won the Niche Customer Choice award at the 2019 FiFi Awards in Moscow.

A Fragrance Dedicated Directly to Her Poet Father

• Montri: A fragrance that portrays the founder’s father, Montri Umavijani, directly. It combines oud Palao, orris butter, spices, rose, leather, tobacco, and noble woods. Pissara says it also includes “the smells of spices from Nepal and India, where my father traveled.” It won the Celebrity Award at the 2022 FiFi Awards.

Recent Creations Continue the Emotional Journey

• Moonlight in Chiangmai: A fresh opening of yuzu and white grapefruit drifts into night-blooming jasmine, myrrh, benzoin, and Thai teakwood. It was the house’s global bestseller in 2023.
• Splendiris: Its name emerged from a public naming competition announced in 2018. A layered fragrance centered on orris butter, it is known as a fan-participation project carried out with Fragrantica, reportedly attracting at least 2,200 participants and distributing at least 100,000 samples.
• Rosarine: A multifaceted fragrance centered on May rose, inspired by the emotions of a visit to the rose garden in Paris’s Parc de Bagatelle. A Best Perfume award winner for 2023.
• Pelagos: A fragrance whose name means “sea” in Greek. Pissara continued working on it while pregnant and completed it two weeks after giving birth. Its distinctive approach attracted attention for evoking an underwater world without the traditional marine material Calone.

A Few More Details…

• “Dusita” is also a word Montri himself used in his poetry. He left the line, “When I die, I want to be in Dusita.” His daughter’s choice of the word for her house’s name was also a response to that line.
• On her first visit to Paris in 2011, Pissara was walking along the Seine when she saw a man wearing old loafers just like those her father had loved. She recalls following him instinctively, unable to stop her tears, and wondering, “If my father were alive, where in Paris would he have taken me?”
• The house’s bestseller Mélodie de l’Amour contains 91% naturally derived ingredients. La Rhapsodie Noire contains 85% naturally derived ingredients.
• In addition to composing perfumes, Pissara paints the watercolors that accompany each one. She has said she would like to adapt that artwork for ceramics and other objects in the future.
• At the Dusita boutique, visitors are offered a drink and invited to sit and talk without being hurried. This atmosphere reflects the spirit of hospitality rooted in Thai culture.