One Umbrella for Two

The Backstory

Sometimes judging a perfume by its bottle is unavoidable.

I’d admired Floraïku’s fragrances for quite some time. The bottles are beautiful, and I love the Japanese-inspired aesthetic of the collection. What I don’t particularly love is the price.

These are extremely expensive fragrances, and whenever I read reviews, nothing sounded compelling enough to justify blind buying one without having had the chance to try it.

One Umbrella for Two was frequently described as smelling like blueberry muffins. That sounded pleasant enough, but I wasn’t entirely convinced I wanted to pay Floraïku prices to smell like breakfast.

Then I came across a review from the Delicious Delights YouTube channel that described it differently. Rather than blueberries, she detected blackcurrant and compared it to the blackcurrant character of The Vagabond Prince’s Enchanted Forest.

Enchanted Forest happens to be one of my favorite fragrances of all time.

Apparently, that was all the encouragement I needed to abandon my sensible reluctance to blind buy.

Composition & Notes

Floraïku lists blackcurrant buds absolute, genmaicha tea, cedarwood, puffed rice, cyclamen, musk, and vanilla among the fragrance’s notes.

Genmaicha is a Japanese green tea blended with roasted rice, which helps explain the unusual cereal-like quality. Together with the puffed rice accord, it creates a softer, creamier impression around the fruit, while the woods and musk provide some depth.

It’s an unusual combination, particularly for a gourmand, and one that makes considerably more sense once you smell it.

The Experience

I immediately understood what the reviewer meant about the blackcurrant.

Despite all the blueberry muffin comparisons, I don’t really smell blueberries here. I smell blackcurrant, unmistakably. It has that distinctive dark fruitiness I love in Enchanted Forest, but the two fragrances take it in very different directions.

One Umbrella for Two surrounds the blackcurrant with a soft, milky cereal quality. There’s something reminiscent of creamy rice and breakfast cereal, gently sweetened without becoming excessively dense.

It’s delicious, but surprisingly airy.

There’s also a faintly woody, almost incense-like quality in the background. I wouldn’t describe the fragrance as smoky, but there’s enough depth to keep the sweetness from feeling too straightforward.

What I especially appreciate is that, despite the fruity sweetness and cereal notes, it doesn’t feel juvenile. It’s a grown-up gourmand, comforting without being cloying, and quite unlike anything else I’ve smelled.

The comparison with Enchanted Forest is particularly interesting because I experience the two fragrances almost as different places within the same setting.

Enchanted Forest smells exactly like its name suggests to me: a mysterious, lush forest filled with blackcurrant, greenery, and dark woods.

One Umbrella for Two is the cozy cabin somewhere inside that forest.

You’re sitting indoors, having a delicious breakfast, surrounded by warmth and comfort. The scent of blackcurrant and creamy cereal fills the room, while just enough of the forest drifts in from outside to remind you where you are.

It’s a completely different interpretation of a familiar scent, and I find it delightful.

Final Words

One Umbrella for Two surprised me. I originally approached Floraïku because of its beautiful presentation, but this fragrance turned out to be genuinely distinctive.

It’s sweet, fruity, creamy, and comforting, with an airy quality that keeps it from feeling overwhelming. The combination of blackcurrant and cereal-like notes is unusual, and it manages to feel sophisticated without sacrificing any of its deliciousness.

The price remains difficult to ignore, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend blind buying it based on the blueberry muffin comparisons alone. That description barely captures what makes it special.

But if you enjoy blackcurrant and appreciate an unconventional, grown-up gourmand, this is absolutely worth exploring.

Enchanted Forest takes me into the woods. One Umbrella for Two invites me inside for breakfast.

I’m quite happy to own both.