Scents · 2023

Nostalgic March: A Memory in Bloom

Author: R Parfums editors · from the words of Rei Nguyen
Published: 18 September 2023
Language: English
Reading time: 2 min
Scents: Nostalgic March

Read this piece in Vietnamese: Đọc bằng tiếng Việt

First published in Vietnamese on 18 September 2023. Translated in 2026 and kept to the original.

Since then:

The post lists only the 50 ml eau de parfum. Nostalgic March now comes in a 50 ml bottle in two lines, Patina and Ceramic, as well as in 12 ml and as a 2 ml vial.
The post calls rice one of the key notes, yet rice does not appear in the notes listed in the post itself.

A Nostalgic March bottle with its patinated brass plate, beside white pomelo blossom and pieces of sugarcane on a green plinth

How was Nostalgic March made?

Landscape ink painting: one curved vermilion-brown brushstroke arches up like a shrimp’s back to form a bridge, with a slender arch beneath it and its left foot set down in heavy ink; on the water below, the arch’s pale reflection breaks off in the middle, among a few faint bands of wash. Willow branches hang from the upper left, one near branch heavy with ink, and a light drizzle slants across the picture.

In March, as the spring drizzle fell, Rei came to the old royal capital. She walked the streets of the Old Quarter and took in the scent of earth and sky in the first flush of spring. It was then that she saw how the time-worn face of Hanoi still shows, half-hidden, in every layer of its culture. It is there in the ancient, moss-covered Turtle Tower (Tháp Rùa); in the vermilion Thê Húc Bridge, “cong cong như con tôm, dẫn vào đền Ngọc Sơn” (arched like a shrimp, leading into Ngọc Sơn Temple); and in the Temple of Literature, Văn Miếu – Quốc Tử Giám, with its thousand years of learning. And with them, the scents of time that the capital still keeps: the gentle sweetness of sugarcane, the wistful scent of pomelo, a faint breath of rice somewhere nearby…

What does Nostalgic March smell like?

Nostalgic March, Eau de Parfum – 50 ml. Top notes: pomelo flower, sugarcane, raspberry. Middle notes: magnolia, tea, Muguet. Base notes: sandalwood, orris, musk, vetivert.

One of the key notes of Nostalgic March is the sweet smell of rice. It is perhaps the scent bound up with our most familiar memories, the ones that call to mind the sweet foods of Asia. Japanese mochi, Vietnamese rice cakes, rice drinks from Korea… all share this same scent. Do you remember the smell of rice milk when you were small?

Landscape ink painting: three rice stalks rise from the lower left, heavy with ink at the root, then bow over to the right under their weight; pale brass grains hang in clusters, dense in places and sparse in others, with a few fallen below. Two long leaf blades are each a single stroke, one folded back.

Nostalgic March – A Memory in Bloom

Pomelo blossom is one of the charms of spring in Vietnam, particularly in Hanoi. In the old days, people took pleasure in skewering pieces of sugarcane, scenting them with pomelo blossom and sharing them over afternoon tea. Mothers and elder sisters would buy sugarcane and choose the middle of the stalk, where it is soft and sweet. They would strip off the rind, cut it into short pieces and put them in a plastic bag with a few pomelo flowers, then tie the bag tight. There were no fridges then, so the cane was left to sit in cool water. Before long, the scent of the pomelo had soaked into it. At midday, when thirst set in, a few pieces of that sweet, chilled cane would revive you, the oil of the pomelo blossom stirring every sense. The delicate scent of pomelo blossom and sugarcane beside a cup of tea: memories of a March long ago in old Tràng An, as Hanoi was once called, that now seem all but forgotten.