Exhibitions · 2024

The Stories Behind the Seven Scents in “Pluviophile – The Rain Lover”

Author: R Parfums
Published: 29 July 2024
Language: English
Reading time: 3 min
Scents: Pluviophile

Read this piece in Vietnamese: Đọc bằng tiếng Việt

First published in Vietnamese on 29 July 2024. Translated in 2026 and kept to the original.

Since then:

The schedule given here for the exhibition series, from July 2024 to August 2025, has now passed.

Part of an openingPluviophile – The Rain Lover · 2024 · Open the record

Glass raindrops hanging on fine threads against a blue backdrop, part of the installation at the Pluviophile scent exhibition

“Pluviophile” is another story about rain. In the rain you savour a quiet joy: its sound becomes a soft curtain, and behind it the voices within are free to speak. The rain will soon pass. But the scent made for those who love it lingers on the skin long after.

Rei Nguyen

Scent need not play a supporting part in art; it can stand as a work in its own right. Perfumer Rei Nguyen showed as much with her first solo exhibition, “Pluviophile – The Rain Lover”.

“Pluviophile – The Rain Lover” opens a series of niche perfume exhibitions by Rei Nguyen. From July 2024 to August 2025, she will present five distinctive scents in a run of exhibitions, each with its own theme. In this first one, she takes us on a journey in scent from Vietnam to Japan through seven scents, each of them a story about rain.

Green Green Grass

Bare feet on soft grass. To touch the earth is a wonderful thing. An earthly scent. When feet kiss the ground.

Landscape ink painting: along the lower left edge lies a thick carpet of grass, slender blades in green and blue-green patina, a few bent low, the nearest few heavy with ink and rising tall. To the right the grass thins into small, faint tufts on damp ground washed in pale terracotta, with blank paper above.

Bare feet on lush green grass, feeling the cool, soft earth beneath them. Green Green Grass recalls childhood days spent running across the fields, when every step was a new discovery. The scent opens on fresh-cut grass, moves to violet leaf in the middle and settles into a base of damp earth: natural, intimate and familiar.

Top notes: Cut grass

Middle notes: Violet leaf

Base notes: Wet soil

Petrichor

The earth smiles at a passing shower. After days of drought. The scent of a gentle wait.

Landscape ink painting: a few thin slanting strokes of rain fall on a band of damp earth swept in wet grey-brown brushwork, with a faint warm haze rising just above the ground. A single raindrop strikes the earth in two dense ink arcs and a few splashes, and beside it a two-leaved sprout in dark ink, faintly tinged green, has just come up.

Petrichor recalls the moment the first drops of rain touch parched ground, bringing with them the familiar notes of geosmin, ozone, Hedione, patchouli, castoreum and labdanum. It is the scent of waiting, and of softness: a feeling anyone will know after rain.

Top notes: Geosmin, Ozone

Middle notes: Hedione

Base notes: Patchouli, Castoreum, Labdanum

Wet Umbrella

Do you know the best thing about a clear umbrella? You feel the rain close around you, and yet you stay dry.

Landscape ink painting: fine slanting strokes of rain in ink and blue-green patina fall across the frame but stop around a dome of blank paper in the middle, leaving a dry, dome-shaped space that reaches down to the ground. Beneath the dome lies a very faint blue-green haze, and on either side the wet ground spreads in blue-green washes.

Wet Umbrella calls up an umbrella wet with rain, and above all that feeling of being wrapped in rain without getting wet. Green cucumber, with notes of musk and sandalwood, makes it a cool, refreshing scent.

Top notes: Wet umbrella

Middle note: Green cucumber

Base notes: Musk, Sandalwood

A Lonely Cloud

A wandering cloud has two choices. It can weave itself into other clouds and become rain. Or it can vanish for ever. Whatever form it takes, at heart it remains a lonely cloud, at ease with itself.

Landscape ink painting: a lone cloud sits in the upper right, built from overlapping dry strokes of blue-grey over a thin wash with watermarks, with wide blank paper around it. Its left edge thins into a few dry wisps and vanishes, while its lower right is darker and lets down four fine slanting streaks of rain that fade midway.

A Lonely Cloud tells of a solitary cloud facing a choice: to join the other clouds and fall as rain, or to disappear for ever. With lemon, petitgrain, muguet, ylang-ylang, amber and vanilla, it is a scent of solitude, yet free and at peace.

Top notes: Lemon, Petitgrain

Middle notes: Muguet, Ylang-ylang

Base notes: Amber, Vanilla

Rain on a Lake

Rain comes softly down from the sky to wander over a calm lake. With every breath of wind, it dances as it pleases. A tender meeting of waters.

Landscape ink painting: a lake left as blank paper in the rain, the far shore a band of trees in a grey, faintly green wash, with a few thin slanting strokes of rain. A raindrop has just met the water in three dense ink arcs and a few splashes, small ripples lie scattered near and far, and a wooden bench plank slants in at the lower right.

Rain on a Lake pictures raindrops dancing on a still lake. With notes of pink peppercorn, grapefruit, galbanum, hyacinth and vetivert, it strikes a perfect balance between freshness and softness, like light rain falling on water.

Top notes: Pink peppercorn, Grapefruit

Middle notes: Galbanum, Hyacinth

Base notes: Vetivert

On a Wooden Bench

Wood has a natural memory: it keeps the thoughts and feelings of those who sit on it. When you need somewhere to think alone, sometimes a wooden bench is all it takes.

Landscape ink painting seen from inside a wooden house: across the top a roof beam in dry-brush strokes, on the left a wooden post fading downwards, and along the bottom edge the warm plank of a bench, cut off by the frame. Beyond lies a lake left as blank paper, the far shore a band of trees in a grey, faintly green wash, with a few distant slanting strokes of rain and small ripples.

An Old Wooden Chair tells of wood’s natural memory, holding the thoughts and feelings of whoever sits there. With bergamot, geranium, lavender, cedarwood and tonka bean, the scent feels time-worn and warm. It is a place for quiet thought, a corner of your own amid the rush of life.

Top notes: Bergamot

Middle notes: Geranium, Lavender

Base notes: Cedarwood, Tonka bean

Wild Flowers

Beneath the great trunks of the trees. Above carpets of deep green grass.

Wild flowers, slender in form, sway and turn to the rhythm of the rain. Their scent is at its loveliest and purest in the murmur and cool of water. Of the rain.

Landscape ink painting: a long leaf rises from the bottom edge and arches over to the right, wet with ink at its base and dry and thin at its tip, with a few pale green streaks along it; beneath the arch stand two wild daisies with petals left as paper and pale yellow centres, the further one smaller, beside a slender leaf on the left. A few slanting strokes of rain stop above the leaf, two drops rest on its back and one falls from its tip, away from the flowers.

Top notes: Basil, Sweet Orange

Middle notes: Bluebell, Daisy

Base notes: Mahogany, Guaiac wood

Each scent is a story, an experience and an invitation to see the world through the lens of fragrance. If you love scent and the stories behind it, make time to see this exhibition and the wonder of “Pluviophile – The Rain Lover”.

Illustrations: new ink paintings made in 2026 for the web edition; not part of the original post, and not by Rei.

Hear Rei’s introduction in the Listening Room