Nette’s New Pear Jam Fragrance Smells As Delicious As It Sounds
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If you consider yourself a die-hard fan of home scents, chances are you’ve probably already added a few of Nette’s best-selling candles and accessories to your collection.
The brand expanded its offerings last year to include a range of eaux de parfum, and its newest scent, Pear Jam, debuted at the end of last month. “It has been about a year since we launched fragrance in March 2023, and really we’ve been working on Pear Jam ever since. It really never stops—I’m actually starting to think about the next fragrance for 2025 now,” Nette founder Carol Han Pyle tells Bazaar.
Pear Jam's fruity-floral blend features uplifting notes of Japanese pear, Bulgarian rose, ambrette seed, vanilla, and raspberry pulp that help cement its functional fragrance roots. The unique, unisex scent is scientifically formulated to increase the user’s feelings of happiness and positivity with just a few spritzes. And just like all Nette perfumes, Pear Jam is also vegan and created without parabens, sulfates, or dyes.
Bazaar caught up with Han Pyle, along with Givaudan senior perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux, for a closer look at the making of Nette’s latest olfactory release.
As it’s been a little over a year since Nette launched the fragrance category, what inspired you to release Pear Jam this season?
Han Pyle: One of my favorite movies from the ’90s is Ghost—I’m obsessed. Do you remember that one scene in the film after Patrick Swayze dies and they haven’t figured out that Carl is the villain yet? He comes over to Molly’s apartment, and it’s like this soaring SoHo loft, the kind that doesn’t exist anymore. So, he comes over and brings her a paper bag full of pears, and he goes, “I brought you those Japanese pears that you like.” I don't know why, but that scene always stuck with me and was just so atmospheric.
I always wondered what that particular scene smelled like, with the pears and New York City in the ’90s, pre-cell-phone, pre-social-media, Demi Moore with her ceramics tucked away. And I also have always really loved pear—it’s such a magical fruit. It means so much to so many people around the world. In Japan, they plant pear trees in front of their homes as a symbol of protection for the families. In China, they’re a symbol of prosperity and abundance. And in Greece, they call them a gift from the gods.
It’s a very revered fruit symbolically across the world, and I’ve always been sort of obsessed with how people think about the pear, and how it would be so interesting to have this Asian pear as the centerpiece of a perfume and have it be symbolically a perfume for protection, abundance, and then very much scientifically, a perfume for joy. That’s the brief that I gave Rodrigo—and the genius that he is, he took that insanity and turned it into what Pear Jam is today.
How did you two work together to bring these ideas to life?
Flores-Roux: This project was a lot of fun. We enjoyed every step of it and put a lot of detail into the fragrance, and that’s the kind of work I love to do: when you don’t leave a single stone unturned and explore all possibilities. The fragrance was lending itself to a lot of dialogue; Carol came to us with a very clear idea, and that assertiveness was very helpful. Pear was very clear in our conversations from the beginning, so we decided to focus on that.
So, I started working on a pear accord based on koji, a Japanese pear, and realized that when you take a bite, there’s this beautiful water—almost like a nectar—that flows out of the fruit. And then the flesh of the pear is also very specific, because it has this graininess or sandiness that’s pleasant to the mouth. So, those for me were some of the important things that we wanted to communicate through this fragrance. The moment you spray it, you know its top note of pear accord is there.
Of course, there’s also a little bit of jasmine, rose, and patchouli, but the hook is this kind of fleshy pear and nectar kind of story. Once Carol told me the name of the fragrance was going to be called Pear Jam, I thought that was very important. It was not all about the lightness, wateriness, and freshness of the scent, but also something tasty and sweet to anchor it with. We constructed this jamminess: It’s very light, uplifting, and happy—there’s nothing dark about it. Then at the very end, I used a very specific molecule that comes from the flavor department that’s called a fruit jam key tone, which adds to the theme of a pot of jelly or jam. We also discovered that it was the first time it’s ever been used in a fragrance, which is a nice claim for Pear Jam.
Han Pyle: It’s actually scientifically proven to boost feelings of happiness and well-being, and it’s certified, as well, to do those things—that was really important to us. And just to reiterate Rodrigo’s note about that raspberry pulp key tone that lends to its jamminess, that was a brilliant finishing brushstroke that Rodrigo added in our very last mod that we did of the fragrance. And it just added—exactly what he was saying—this jammy quality to Pear Jam that was not there before in all of the other iterations that we did, and I just think it makes it so special. I feel really lucky that we’re the only fragrance brand that has used that particular ingredient.
Could you describe a little of the science behind Pear Jam’s mood-boosting benefits?
Flores-Roux: We used an AI instrument that takes a look at the combination of raw materials which go through a calculation regarding how they relate to the human brain. You feel moods of happiness and relaxation with Pear Jam, and this was also important to Carol in the beginning, because in these modern times, customers want a fragrance with added benefits.
Pear Jam’s 50 ml design also reveals the first of Nette’s next generation of bottle aesthetics. Can you speak about your decision to add a color-pop detail to each of your scents moving forward?
Han Pyle: Yes, we’re redesigning all of our larger perfume bottles to have colors painted on the bottom that relate directly to each of the fragrances, and that’s rolling out over the next couple of months. I think we try to convey the feeling of each of our fragrances at every single touchpoint. We want our fragrances to be able to help our community take good care of themselves and really use them for an uplifting benefit throughout their days. And we also want to convey the feeling behind every fragrance through both art and science.
We do this through the poems that are printed on our perfume bottles, and each one of our candles also has a poem on their labels to try and convey the feeling behind the scent. Of course, we also do that with our perfumes with this mood-boosting technology that’s really infused into every single one of our fragrances. I felt like color was a missing link; color is able to also affect mood and emotion, and convey, I think, the feeling of a fragrance in a really powerful way. Like, for example, Pear Jam: Pears aren’t pink, right? They’re green or yellow or brown, but I really felt like this particular fragrance was a pink pear fragrance because of ingredients like raspberry pulp and rose—I just felt the sweet, happy, cheerful, jamminess of it. We led with that color, really just to make sure that people know that this doesn’t smell like an unripe green pear, it smells jammy, luscious, and mouthwatering. To me, the color pink accurately reflects that.
Flores-Roux: It really rounds out the entire concept very beautifully.
Definitely. Would you say this scent is designed for fruit-forward fragrance lovers or the fruit-averse?
Flores-Roux: The fragrance can be perceived as more feminine than not, but it wears very nicely on guys, too.
Han Pyle: I agree! Upon first spritz, there’s this happy juiciness, like it’s a very photorealistic pear, but I think as it dries out, it does get more androgynous. Those rich woods really come out in a beautiful way.
Of course, the name Pear Jam is a play on Pearl Jam. Would either of you count yourselves as fans of the iconic rock band?
Han Pyle: I’m a huge fan! I actually walked down the aisle at my wedding to their song “Just Breathe.” It’s not one of their hits, but it’s a very romantic song.
Nette’s Pear Jam eau de parfum is available at nettennyc.com and sephora.com starting at $30.
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