Press · 2023

221B: R Parfums and Rei Nguyen

Published: 18 September 2023
Language: English
Reading time: 1 min

Read this piece in Vietnamese: Đọc bằng tiếng Việt

First published on 18 September 2023. This is a summary; the full piece belongs to the source credited at the end.

A Patina bottle with a gold cap on top of a rough stone post, lit by low afternoon sun; behind it, iron railings and dark water — Image added in 2026, not part of the original post: a Patina bottle in the last of the day’s light, photographed in 2023.

In a personal piece, Minh Bùi writes about 221B as a scent that takes the writer back to memories of youth.

The piece describes leather that is never heavy and a rose that is never sweet, familiar and strange at once, and ties the scent to Sherlock Holmes: sharp, steadfast, always turned towards the truth. The writer thanks Rei Nguyen for telling that story in notes, and for a scent that brings back the ambitions of boyhood. It was written while the writer was moving into a temporary home before a new one.