Casablanca

The Perfume Of Casablanca Lilies

For March, I added Casablanca, a new fragrance in The House Of White Petals. In expanding my scent collections, I've been picking fragrances from my library according to my mood -essential for fragrance work- and the time of the year. As we ease into Spring with warmer temperatures and more sunlight, I have been burning Casablanca at home, perhaps because part of me is already over Winter, and I long to smell the flowers in my garden. 

Of course, it helps that I spent the first five years of this business developing formulas, and by now, I have about 110 in my library and counting. I have been working in Casablanca since 2019. Any perfumer knows how long it takes to be satisfied, the testing and reformulations, and the constant desire to perfect accords. 

The Inspiration For Casablanca

The inspiration for Casablanca was always in the back of my mind. When I was a kid, I used to walk every day from home to tennis lessons after lunch, during the siesta hours, and the boulevard that took me to the private tennis club we belonged to was -and still is- lined with beds of lilies. In Argentina, we call them Azucenas, and they are very popular. For some reason, I have come to think they are more loved in Latin countries than here in the US, but that could be because, in my research, I have come across many people who despise lilies with some utter disgust that is hard to understand. 

Yet, when looking up all the different versions of perfumes, candles, room sprays, and fragrance oils that say "Lily" or "Easter Lily" or "Casablanca lily", I never came across something I would say "Aha! This is IT!" So many things can smell like lilies, which is up for personal interpretation. 

What constitutes a luxury candle or luxury diffuser? It's a very personal question, and many variables influence that description. Luxury home fragrance is a vast market. When I founded RHR Luxury, I created something different, where authentic materials would lend their magic to beautiful products that could transport you somewhere else. I don't take the word luxury lightly.

The Loyal Reconstruction Of A Flower Fragrance

I decided to go with the closest approximation to the perfume of fresh flowers. I obtained what has got to be one of the only lily enfleurage materials in the world—go ahead, try to find it—and I built upon it to expand on the accords that we identify as "white lily" or "Casablanca lily." Being a soliflore, meaning a fragrance representing a single flower, it is very niche. Once achieved, it's meant to smell like lilies. 

Casablanca lilies are a hybrid derived from Central and East Asian lily species. They have many cousins, all with different perfumes, which have been studied and analyzed over the years but remain challenging to distill.

I work with a supplier who creates what has got to be one of the only lily enfleurage materials available worldwide. It is a heavenly material that, when diluted correctly, can be worn as a perfume by itself. 

This enfleurage was key to include in the formula. I create luxury home fragrances, and if I am going to call them luxury, I want to use the most luxurious materials I can find. 

I like working with materials of P&N (Pure & Natural) origin. To that extent, I added some rare essential oils to impart freshness, citrus, or spicy accords to the smell of real Casablanca lilies. The result is a decadent perfume that can diffuse through my entire home. And now you can take it home, too. 

RHR