RICE

Rice in perfume evokes the grain through soft, gently sweet or nutty impressions, sometimes with the suggestion of rising steam. It need not smell like a sugary rice dessert. The effect can be about texture as much as food: a rounded grain-like presence within a floral, musky or woody composition.

Diptyque explicitly calls the rice element in L’Eau Papier an accord of rice steam, placing it with white musks, mimosa and blonde woods. In d’Annam’s White Rice, the house describes highlighting a delicate grain theme with pandan, jasmine and white musk, and giving it a nutty contour through orris and wood. These are different constructions, not a universal recipe. A rice note does not establish rice extract, a particular cultivar or the same softness and projection in every perfume.