Guy, citrus, hugs, a father

Guy, 28, lives in Amsterdam. He’s someone who knows how to enjoy life, wine, food, good drinks, and the small rituals that make them meaningful. So when we saw that his answer was “an orange peel in a Negroni”, we were already hooked. But what followed painted the picture of a man you wish you could meet.

“My dad always wears citrusy fragrances” Guy told us. “Whenever I catch a hint of orange peel with the fresh smell of a Negroni, I think of him. And vice versa.” His father, as he describes him,"is a "friendly giant"

Big-hearted, big-hugged, and happiest when cooking, eating, drinking, or singing with his (grand)kids. His father is not a scented-object kind of man. There’s no old scarf or aftershave bottle tucked in a drawer. Just the memory of zest and warmth, stirred together over ice. We smiled when Guy admitted he hasn’t yet tried Ether Woods. His favorite remains Sur Arize, bright, textural, and full of life, just like his story.

Stella, where silence smells like incense

Stella writes and talks about perfume for a living. But it was her pause, the way she described the act of remembering, that stayed with us. “Thank you for such a beautiful project,” she said. “It made me pause and breathe in an old memory.”

Her father figure smelled of black pepper and incense. Not always, but in the quiet moments.

 “After a shower, when he’d sit on the sofa with a book. That sharp, dry warmth of pepper and then the stillness of incense, like Sunday mornings.”

She called her father figure a quiet man. Not much for big gestures. Deeply present. Someone who showed up more in silences than in words. Calm authority that didn’t need to raise its voice. She still has one of his shirts. The scent is faint now, but when she presses her nose into the fabric, it’s still there. Clean cotton, cologne, and time.

Our heritage with scent

Before mmoire was a brand, it was a story. A family story. You may know Caroline van Balen from our Traces of Her series, our founder Sophie’s mother. But behind her was her own father, Sophie’s grandfather. He ran a rose nursery for over 30 years, and the smell of those roses filled their family’s days. Caroline still closely recalls this scent that cradled her childhood. For her, the smell of roses was safety, elegance, care. You can find her story  here.

Sophie inherited this instinct. The desire to capture the ephemeral. She founded mmoire with this very idea, that fragrance is a memory made material. That unisex perfume, when done right, doesn’t just sit on the skin, it tells a story. Her grandfather’s roses, her mother’s legacy, her own sensibility, all of it threads through each bottle.

The rose nursery is no longer there, but its traces remain. In Sur Arize’s brightness. In Ether Woods’s hush.