Welcome to the perfume room. Thank you for your patience. It has been two long weeks since the last episode, and I have missed you. But I promise that this little hiatus was worth the weight.

The reason for my absence is because I was in Paris interviewing guests,

ones that we have only ever dreamed of, and I am so excited to bring them all to your ears.

Today's guest is one of those people, and it was a thrill to interview her.

I act like I'm holding in some sort of surprise. Meanwhile, if you are listening to this right now, you can see her name in the

episode. In just a few minutes, you will be hearing from none other than master perfumer,

Calise Becker. But before we get there, let's catch up. Okay, so I went to Paris, obviously, to do these

interviews, but also to attend Paris perfume week, where I was introduced to a lot of new brands,

ones I had never heard of, and to really generalize and synthesize some of my observations,

I would say that regions of the world that are really burgeoning and

offering really interesting concepts, spaces to watch right now in this niche space are China

and Central and Eastern Europe. This is a bigger conversation, maybe something that I will

unpack in a future solo episode or maybe even do a full substack post on one dedicated to the

brands I discovered general observations of the landscape and also an updated Paris perfume

shopping guide because wow I discovered so many new gems on this trip stay tuned I will definitely

get that to you in one format or another.

And with that, my sent of the day today is Mademoiselle Cleo,

which is spelled Mel Cleo,

and which I fully called Mel Cleo,

until the wonderful gentleman helping me in the perfume store

where I discovered it, whose name was Frederick, saw me point to it

and said with such a genuine enthusiasm that I think he could actually sell me air, said,

...