Ella K Parfums
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The grapefruit and yuzu explode with a sharp, almost white citric energy, bright enough to cut through morning fog. Bergamot arrives immediately to structure this chaos, lending a more formal, tea-like quality that prevents the top notes from becoming mere brightness—there's almost a perfumed soap cleanliness here that's deeply satisfying.
The green centre reveals itself gradually as the citrus fades, with matcha and bamboo creating an unexpected creaminess—like whisked matcha bringing a subtle richness to the composition. Shiso leaf emerges with a peppery, slightly metallic edge that complicates the initial freshness, introducing a savoury dimension that makes this phase genuinely interesting and prevents predictability.
Musk and cedarwood ground the composition into something more sensual and woody, whilst patchouli adds a subtle earthiness that never dominates. The fragrance becomes a skin scent here—intimate, slightly powdery, with the green heart still faintly present but now intertwined with the woods in a final whisper of restraint.
Poème de Sagano opens like a window into a Kyoto garden at dawn—a fragrance built on the precise tension between Japanese aesthetics and modernist fragrance architecture. Sonia Constant has constructed something genuinely architectural here: the grapefruit and yuzu don't announce themselves as bright citrus bombast, but rather as the crisp, almost mineral clarity that follows rain on stone. They're immediately challenged by the fragrance's green heart, where bamboo and matcha create a subtle, slightly creamy greenness that feels less like grass and more like the smell of fresh-cut bamboo stalks—slightly powdery, with that characteristic vegetal sweetness.
The shiso leaf is the revelation. Rather than functioning as a supporting green note, it introduces a savoury, almost peppery undertone that prevents Poème de Sagano from ever becoming conventionally pretty. This is a fragrance with backbone. The citrus-green accords (which dominate the composition) never tip into cheerfulness; instead, they maintain an contemplative restraint that feels distinctly Japanese in sensibility.
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3.5/5 (196)