Pissara Umavijani, founder and creator of the multi-award-winning Parfums Dusita, has had a fascination with fragrances from a young age, but her career in perfumery only took flight after traveling to Paris—a city her father, Montri Umavijani, had always loved as part of his longing to live in Europe. In each of her perfumes, she celebrates her father, a poet in Thailand. Although his poems were composed in simple words, they carried meanings that resonated deeply.
“I grew up in a house surrounded by books and a lovely garden. I spent a lot of my time alone, playing with the earth, the flowers, the plants—it was where I began to develop a love for nature’s scents. I learned to appreciate the unique fragrances of each moment—the freshness of the rain, the vibrance of the tropical garden, the stillness before a storm. Even then, I didn’t know that I was to become a perfumer.”
“It was only many years later that I found myself with a collection of perfumes and, with my friends, we’d often marvel at the beauty of vintage fragrances. Eventually I started collecting more and, one day, I thought, ‘Why don’t we blend them together?’”
“Blending scents was something I could lose myself in, without a sense of time. I was just like my father, who would work on his poetry for nights on end. Just as writing was his true passion, perfumery became mine. In that moment, I knew I wanted to become a perfumer.”
“My father influenced me in so many ways, not only through words but the way he lived his life. He always travelled the world with a notebook in hand, capturing the moments in pen. He told me once that he saw divinity in ordinary people, in those he met on his travels. I admire him so much as my father and as a human being. His ability to distil life into words is similar to what I do as a perfumer—capturing the memories and feelings in scents. The challenge is the same: How do you create something that meaningful in fragrance as my father did in poetry?”
“I see myself as a narrator, interpreting my fragrances as a theme of happiness. In Parfums Dusita, the name Dusita means paradise. For me, paradise is a place where you can find your true happiness. Dusita is such a place, where passion leads to joy. Paradise isn’t something we wait for—it’s here and now. When you find the scents you love, when you recreate these scents into a fragrance that speaks to your soul, you’re already living in paradise. That is what I want Dusita to represent.”
“Like my fragrance, Montri, it is a direct homage to my father. In his poetry, he once said:
The pen is me
And I am the pen:
In writing,
The pen gets lost
To become part of the thing
I cannot recall
“That sentiment meant so much to me because I always saw him writing with the same pen all his life, losing himself in his own world. There are three layers to Montri that portray the key stages of his life. It opens up with spice, capturing his travels. The heart is made with rose and orris, which reflects his time living in Paris. For the base, it is made with agarwood. I wanted something woody, like the smell of incense, a reflection of him as an artist, which took a long time to create.”
“When I was in university, my father became ill with cancer. I spent a lot of time caring for him in the hospital. He said to me, ‘I’ve worked hard all my life. I wanted people to read my poetry, but they always said that it was too complicated.’ But there was a professor who loved his work and, because of that, he told me that he could die happy. We cried together. That moment impacted me profoundly. It made me realise that the true measure of success is simply doing your best, no matter the outcome.”
“My father taught me a lot through the idea of passion alone. He believed that death is just a part of life, but without passion and love, it won’t feel like we truly lived. At the end of the day, you need to find your own path, your own passion, what makes you happy. Don’t give up, and always be persistent. There is no such thing as perfection. Running a business comes with obstacles and challenges, but they are part of life. And in the process, I’ve learned how to create lifelong partnerships with people who truly matter.”
Illustrations by Dawum Jeong
