The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Mathew Schmuelian made Hope You Like It in 2022 as his first perfume. The brief was straightforward: a special blend of his favorite florals. Red champaca, frangipani, osmanthus. Those three became the backbone of the composition, carrying the entire weight of the juice on their petals. The fragrance opens with a careful lift of pink grapefruit and yellow mandarin, citrus that brightens without ever fully taking the lead, before the ambergris rumbles in underneath, low and warm and faintly animalic, closer to old paper than perfume. The florals arrive together, dense and creamy, with the champaca turning almost bruised and the osmanthus layering in apricot skin and fruit leather.
What makes the composition work is the tension between those three florals. Champaca brings that deep, almost banana-skin warmth, frangipani hits with sunscreen and cream, and osmanthus adds the leathery apricot skin that gives the whole thing its fruit-leather read. Throw in ambergris at the top and a real Malaysian oud underneath, and it stops being a bouquet and starts being a personality. The musk underneath isn't a polite musk. It's the kind that makes people lean closer.
The evolution
Right out of the bottle, the pink grapefruit and yellow mandarin show up, but they don't lead. They boost the fruit and let the ambergris introduce itself. Ambergris here is animalic in a low, warm way, think old books in a warm room, and it sits just underneath the opening citrus. Within ten minutes the florals crash in. Champaca goes dark and creamy, frangipani adds that tropical sunscreen note, and osmanthus pours in the fruit leather. This is the loudest phase, almost loud enough to feel like a different scent than what comes next. As the hours pass, the oud rises. It's not a sharp oud, not the kind that clears a room. It's a Malaysian oud that sits soft and resinous, blending into Mysore sandalwood until the whole base becomes this warm, musky, slightly sweet wood. The natural musk underneath never really leaves.
Cultural impact
Hope You Like It sits as a floral with edges, a perfume that pulls from oud and animalic materials while keeping tropical flowers at the front. The wearer who reaches for it usually wants something that reads as skin-close and warm rather than sharp, something where the florals don't behave like a bouquet but like a layered, lived-in thing. The animalic undertone gives it a groundedness that pure florals often lack, and the oud in the base keeps the whole composition leaning warm and resinous for hours. It's a scent for someone who already knows what they like and wants a floral that doesn't feel like background music.
