Bottle Design:
Kavi Moltz

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White Peacock Lily D.S. & Durga 2016

6.9 / 10 31 Ratings

A perfume by D.S. & Durga for women and men, released in 2016. The scent is floral-sweet. The production was apparently discontinued.
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Main accords

Floral

Sweet

Creamy

Green

Fresh

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Grapefruit

Cabreuva

Oleander

Heart Notes

White lily

Egyptian jasmine Violet

Violet

Base Notes

Vanilla

Ambrette seed

Mist note

Perfumer

David Seth Moltz

Ratings

Scent

6.931 Ratings

Longevity

7.623 Ratings

Sillage

7.323 Ratings

Bottle

6.631 Ratings

Submitted by AmyAmy · last update on 12/24/2024.

Source-backed & verified

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What the fragrance is similar to

Chat Perché

Reviews

4 in-depth fragrance descriptions

12/10/2024

8Scent

Misericorde
18 Reviews

Misericorde

2

dank watery lily.....

Hmmmm which iteration of white peacock lily will I get today....

Perfect lilyheads drooping in cold morning fog?

A Miami couple retire in Sicily and decorate the villa gardens with pink flamingos?

Algae dumped in a new box of sneakers???

The abandoned well in the middle of every TK Maxx??

Always, there is something incongruous and not quite right.
WPL is sometimes my favourite or most hated lily and I can't tell until I put it on... I often have trouble with the strange earthiness of the grapefruit, which in general is among my least favourite notes.

It begins bright and full, waxy and quite round. After an hour or so, there's something quite limp and lifeless. Graceful but dead, and floating in the water.

WPL can feel suffocating and oppressive after too long. Salem Gothic by this brand is comparatively sunny and exuberant.

Polarising, definitely.

08/12/2022

10Scent 10Longevity 10Sillage

Anamandy
108 Reviews

Anamandy

2

The Most Perfect Lily

This is a flower blossom bonanza, that's airy and light, yet grounded too. It didn't start out that way though. It started out very strange, and a little hard to describe, like a dank earthiness. I just was not sure where this was going, though it wasn't offensive enough where I felt the urge to wash it off. Just a little dark and weird. Fortunately, that opening salvo passes soon enough to reveal a beautiful floral scent.
This is the most beautiful lily perfume I've ever smelled. Lily is front and center in this scent and has a wonderful earthiness that brings to mind lilies grown in situ. I also love the ambrette in this. It adds a subtle animalic muskiness to this scent that is soooo sexy. But what really sets this apart for me from so many others big floral perfumes of today is the underlying mossiness reminiscent of vintage perfumes of the past. I had no idea where that was coming from until I looked more closely at the note profile. Honestly, I was still a little perplexed until I read up on the note Cabreuva. I've never smelled that note in any perfume before but am enchanted by what it adds to this scent, which is an earthy mossiness similar to oakmoss, yet lacking that note's greenness. Between it, and the ambrette, it provides this beautiful musky, mossy base from where the floral notes float around it. And while silage does go down to a discrete level, I was aware of it and catching lovely wafts all day. Just beautiful!

11/24/2016

9Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

ScentFan
336 Reviews

ScentFan

Helpful Review 3

"One of the Most Beautiful"

I learned about this fragrance in an article entitled "Why the Prettiest Scents Contain the Ugliest Things." http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/11/david-moltz-perfumer-interview-gross-things-in-perfume.html.

In it, D.S. & Durga perfumer David Moltz referred to White Peacock Lily as "one of the most beautiful scents of all time." I did a double take. How could he risk the reputation of well-regarded D.S. & Durga by saying such a thing, especially about a scent he made himself? Then my heart skipped a beat. I felt the all-too-familiar, gotta have it, blind buy-a-coming thrill. What if it really is one of the most beautiful scents of all time? Lamenting, briefly, the power of mere lovely words, I put the fragrance firmly on my wish list, rather than in a online cart somewhere, determined to calm down and not be bamboozled. Next day, briefly, hubby and I had words of a slightly less lovely kind. Shortly I learned my wish list had been perused and the fragrance was on its way. [To no avail I've pointed out the indignity of offering or accepting emotional bribes, er apologies.] The perfume came last night. I am not sending it back. It is too beautiful.

What's in the top? Grapefruit, Red Mahogany, a scent I know. When we married and, four months later, I marshaled courage and moved into his house 1200 miles away, hubby bought out a wood store of its supply of red mahogany to make bookshelves for the office I needed, fashion oriental screens for the tall windows with his own hands. Red Mahogany for me is the smell of love. Poisonous oleander is a top note, too, its rosy sweetness tamed by the other two. Not to be outdone, a genuine note of lily pairs with indolic jasmine and bright violet to take and possess center stage for a long time. No rush. They want to give you time to see how beautiful they are. Only gradually do spicy/musky ambrette, vanilla and something akin to fog exert themselves. Hours later, they are what you smell, supported by the florals. Unfortunately, there is a definite period when lily alone predominates--about thirty to forty minutes in. It's a less lovely stage than the others, lending a vegetal air. Just wait for it to subside and you'll be rewarded with the haunting beauty that still clung to my hand when I woke this morning.

I don't know if White Peacock Lily is one of the most beautiful scents of all time. Maybe. It's certainly one of the most unusual, distinguished, and fascinating scents I've ever smelled.

01/21/2018

7.5Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

DonJuanDeCat
2050 Reviews

Translated · Show original

DonJuanDeCat

Helpful Review 6

And the cat fell into the water!

Well, sometimes I find it hard to relate to certain fragrance descriptions. Just like here with White Peacock Lily. The only information I could find describes the following:

A lonely peacock strides over creamy lilies, oleanders, and a sea of alabaster violets. Harps and horns sound. A pale blue mist hangs over distant forests.
…
And that’s it. Great! :D
What happens next? To me, it reads like the beginning of a story, a fairy tale, something where something could still happen… but apparently, one has to come up with the rest on their own… the author probably ran out of ideas or motivation :D
If anyone knows more, feel free to tell me!

Well, whatever… at least I can smell something right away,… which might help in coming up with my own story!

The scent:

Hmm, I have the feeling that the scent starts directly with the heart note (since I don't smell anything citrusy like grapefruit or the like). Because I smell white flowers, which are probably the lilies. But above all, I smell very intense and sweet jasmine, as well as sweet but also powdery, soft violets. Additionally, there seems to be a light, aquatic note in the background.
It gets slightly stuffy, which is due to the floral notes. I suspect it’s the oleanders that are now apparently detectable. Because lilies, jasmine, and violets never smell stuffy, at least not to me (or maybe it is the lilies? Ah, I'm not sure…).
However, the stuffiness quickly fades away, making the scent significantly more pleasant and beautiful, and almost creamy. It remains floral and especially sweet with gentle, powdery notes, which might still seem a bit strong, as the scent has a generally strong sillage. In the end, the scent remains floral sweet.

The sillage and longevity:

The projection is, as mentioned, strong and thus very good to smell. You will leave a scent cloud behind, and the fragrance can also be detected from a bit further away.
The longevity is also quite good, so you can expect around nine or ten hours.

The bottle:

The bottle is cylindrical, which seems to be new, as I usually only know the rectangular bottles from D.S. & Durga. The label here only shows the name, the elaborately designed logo has apparently been removed, which is a shame, as the bottles now look even simpler than before.

So… after sniffing the scent, I can come up with my own story:
The peacock, standing at the edge of a lake, gazed intently at the mist-covered forests and did not notice how a cat stealthily approached it through the white lilies. Its fate seemed inevitable, yet the usually graceful feline made a fateful mistake and snapped a small twig, allowing the peacock to jump aside just as the cat pounced. As it had to be, the cat fell into the lake while the peacock ran away laughing, while the cat swam back to the shore, grumbling! :D

Silly story, I know. On the other hand, our beloved little scratchers are not always as elegant as one might think. Especially when playing on the hardwood floor, it often happens that the little ones slip while running and crash everywhere :D
My clawed pet once got so startled by something that it jumped two meters high and then fell into the (at that time still open) turtle aquarium while running away. Of course, it was out again in less than a second due to all the water, but it was still soaking wet :D

White Peacock Lily is, in any case, a gentle and slightly creamy, floral spring fragrance that, due to its strong sillage and deliciously sweet notes, is very suitable for going out. And by the way, I find the scent very feminine rather than unisex as stated.

Updated on 01/21/2018