The scent The artist This is a 2 ml spray sample. Find the full bottle here. Paying homage to the French-Alps village of Grasse, where Kismet-founder Shabnam Tavakol lived and studied perfumery, Nostalgia is a love song composed of 14 raw materials structured on poetry’s sonnet form. It’s bold, adventurous, rich and deep, the textured leather and supple suede develop on the skin with piercing anise and the earthy grassiness of nagamotha. There’s a mystery within this sonnet, perhaps nostalgic of love left behind. The fragrance’s first quatrain is based on seductive suede, saffron, and leather accords, evoking Grasse’s early roots as a renowned epicenter of leather tanning in the Middle Ages. Located along the Côte d'Azur—where the mountains meet the Mediterranean Sea—Grasse evolved into the world’s perfume capital in the 18 th century, becoming home to hillside flower fields captured in Nostalgia’s heart notes of Rose de mai and nagarmotha. Nostalgia’s culminating volta turns upwards with its anisic top-notes, representative of the herbal-infused aperitif Pastis with which Shabnam developed an intimate—and perhaps destructive—relationship during after-school hours at Grasse’s sole watering hole, Le Crystal. At once leathery, musky, floral, herbal, smoky, and spicy, Nostalgia is a rich and complex unisex scent intoxicating to men, women, and everything in between. Notes include anise, leather, suede, saffron, nagamotha, tonka, rose de mai. Kismet Olfactive is a New York City-based independent fragrance studio founded by bohemian-perfumer Shabnam Tavakol. Born and raised in California, Shabnam—Farsi for “morning dew”—is the daughter of Iranian-immigrant parents who escaped the violent 1979 Revolution in Iran, relocating to the U.S. by way of hard-won efforts and a string of good fortune. Recognizing this fortuitous past, Kismet—from the Persian qismat, meaning “fate,” or, “what is meant to be”—translates the serendipitous moments that make up our lives into wearable scents. Prizing process over profit, the journey over destination, Kismet represents custom small batch formulation using hand-selected, ethically sustainable materials in its dedication to artful olfactive storytelling. Find out more about Kismet Olfactive on our BLOG.
