“Good taste is a lifelong journey, not a destination.”
Sonia
On a childhood spent asking why, jasmine beneath a pillow, two moods worn on alternate days, and knowledge sought with a calm and steady mind.
Tap the underlined phrases for notes in the margin. Most of this page can be touched.
Sonia is a chemist in Bogor who describes herself, accurately, as a professional overthinker and a full-time curious human. She was the child who asked why until the adults ran out of answers, and instead of growing out of it she studied chemistry and found the questions only multiplied. Outside the lab she dances, writes, and reads poetry, and it is exactly that seam between the curious and the creative that walked her into fragrance. What follows is a conversation with someone who genuinely wants to know how things work, applied to the one subject where knowing more only deepens the mystery.
Her words: a melancholy soul, full of heartbreak songs that do not sound like her at all. She is usually cheerful, but sad songs have always felt strangely comforting.
The girl who asked why
The curiosity came first, and everything else is downstream of it. As a child she asked why so constantly that people joked she asked too many questions. She was not trying to be difficult. She simply wanted to understand why things were the way they were, which is the entire job description of a scientist and, it turns out, of a person who takes perfume seriously.
Chemistry gave the curiosity a home and then changed how she sees everything: once you know it is everywhere, shaping the simplest parts of an ordinary day, you cannot unknow it. Her way into fragrance was the same instinct pointed at a bottle. She was fascinated that a perfume could be one thing on the opening, another at its heart, and something else again in the dry-down. She wanted to know why a scent could feel so different over time. So we built her the answer to press through.
The first minutes, and the loudest. These are the lightest, most volatile molecules, the ones that leap off the skin and vanish fastest. Bright, sharp, gone within the hour. It is the part everyone smells in the shop and almost nobody actually wears.
The bench · Where the why livesFlasks, a notebook of structures, and the molecules behind the smell.
Jasmine, and a story under the pillow
Ask her for a scent that takes her somewhere and there is no hesitation. Jasmine.
Her mother used to place fresh jasmine flowers under her pillow every night. As the room filled with that delicate smell, she would tell the same bedtime story over and over, Kancil Nyolong Timun, or offer small pieces of advice that quietly became part of who she is. Now the smell of jasmine returns all of it at once: the flowers beneath the pillow, her mother's voice, the stories that stayed long after she had fallen asleep. It is the cleanest example in this whole series of what scent actually does. Not decoration. Retrieval.
Under the pillow · Jasmine and KancilThe lamp, the flowers, and the book her mother read until she slept.
Real jasmine is not one smell. It is a handful of molecules, each doing a different job, and the chemist in her can name them. These four do most of the work.
Four molecules, one flower. Tap any tile to see what it actually contributes to the smell.
Two moods, worn on alternate days
What she reaches for now depends entirely on the day, and she alternates between two scents that could not be more different. One is warm and woody with soft spices, incense-like to her nose, and it always returns her to Banyuwangi, where she grew up. Wearing it is a way of carrying home. The other is fresh and light, and she has been reaching for it constantly, because life has been hectic with goals and deadlines. The bright ones do not make the busy days disappear. They just make them a little easier to carry.
Two scents, two moods, chosen by how the day feels. Tap one to hear what it does for her.
Two very different moods, kept side by side and never blended.
She does not have one signature. She has two, and the day decides which one she needs.
Twice a day, on purpose
Her ritual is small and she is precise about it: fragrance twice a day, once before she heads out in the morning and once before she goes to bed. The two applications do opposite jobs. The morning one is for intention, a way to begin the day pointed somewhere. The night one is for calm, a quiet way to unwind before sleep. No matter how busy life gets, she says, those two moments remind her that a fragrance is not just something she wears. It is something she returns to.
Before she heads out. One application to point the day somewhere, to start it with intention rather than a to-do list.
A cheerful soul, comforted by sad songs
She calls herself a melancholy soul and then, in the same breath, says she is usually cheerful. Her playlist is full of heartbreak songs that, by her own account, do not sound like her at all. And yet the sad ones have always felt strangely comforting. It is not a contradiction so much as a preference: the melancholy is not where she lives, it is where she goes to rest.
Good taste, still moving
Ask her to define good taste and she refuses to pin it down, which is itself the answer. Good taste is not fixed, she says. Like people, it evolves. Every book she reads, every place she visits, every conversation and every scent quietly reshapes it. To her it is a lifelong journey rather than a destination, which means the honest thing to do is keep the question open. The curious child never grew out of it. She just found a subject large enough to stay curious about for good.
One belief, defended
The belief she will always defend is not hers alone. It is the philosophy of Merpati Putih, the martial art she used to practise, and it fits her exactly.
Mersudi Patitising Tindak, Pusakane Titising Hening. Seek knowledge with a calm and steady mind. Understanding cannot be rushed.
“I'm still learning and exploring this world, and I hope that curiosity never fades.”