From Hairy, Wrinkled Bud to Cheery, Spectacular Bloom: The Story Behind Nest Fragrances’ Newest Scent Wild Poppy

A few years ago on one of her weekly visits to the flower market, Laura Slatkin, founder of Nest Fragrances, noticed a bucket of extremely unattractive buds. “I looked down and said ‘What ARE those?’,” Slatkin recalled on a recent visit to Toronto. “They were wrinkled and hairy”. But by the following week, a flicker of a petal had peeked out, and within a few more weeks, something had changed. “Then those ugly buds transformed into the most spectacular, cheerful, beautiful flowers,” she says. Their metamorphosis into this lively and joyful bloom reminded Slatkin of her 19-year-old daughter who just started college and sparked the idea for her newest scent, Wild Poppy, which launches at Sephora today. “I wanted to really capture her spirit.”

Since poppies have no scent, Slatkin used the essence of Rose de Grasse as her starting point, which she had experienced on a trip to the French town during the flower’s last harvest of the season. She combined it with Himalayan jasmine and then infused the floral combination with apricot, raspberry and pear. “It’s such a pretty, cheery flower, so I wanted it to have this vibrancy and the fruits just lifted the florals.” Slatkin loved the final result but once manufactured and shipped off to Sephora, the fragrance had a chance to macerate. “And in the process, it got 1000 times better,” she says. “Sometimes that happens; it gets even better like a great wine.”