September 27, 2026

This article is dedicated to Daniel Liatowitsch, who lost his dear daughter Ava, on the 5th of august 2020. The context incorporates the conceptuality of the perfume Deluge, but mainly: For Ava, who never stopped loving the rain.

Rain is something special. It gives life to gardens, and can take away everything in a flood.

It nourishes and it overwhelms. Too little, and the earth cracks. Too much, and it drowns.

Rain is both an ending and a beginning: it breaks the drought, wakes the dry earth, and in its heaviest form, becomes a deluge. Between the first drop and the flood lies petrichor, the scent of the world taking a breath.

In contrast, we find longing. loss. life. and passing.

This is the story of a girl who never stopped loving the rain. And her father, who bottled his emotions back into a perfume.

For Ava.

Daniel Liatowitsch

The storyteller.

Daniel Liatowitsch grew up in Basel, Switzerland, and is a very kind person. He’s creative, down to earth, and very passionate about the things that he do. From a early age, after watching star wars in a dark cinema, he decided that if he every grew up, he would make movies. And at only twelve years old, he made his first short film for swiss television. It was a thinly-disguised version of his favourite film “ Grease 2” except with twelve year olds and German new wave music, he tells in our interview.

Later on, moving to Los Angeles and finishing his studies over there, he continued to co-write a number of screenplays, comic books, and also became a podcaster. So, perfumery wasn’t really a part of his life in a bigger sense at that time.

The deluge.

Déluge comes from the Latin diluere*, to wash away. It can mean the flood that takes everything, or the rain that washes the world clean. It is a heavy word, and carries alot of meaning, both philosophically and also conceptually.

For Daniel, the Deluge started in 2015, when his daughter Ava, who at that time was only 12 years old, got diagnosed with a brain tumor.

This was a very tough time for Daniel, and he explains, that no matter what Ava had to endure, whether it was chemotherapy, radiation, resections, seizures: Her most cherished desire was the return to normality, to laugh with her family and friends she loved so dearly.

When she passed away in 2020, in the midst of COVID, Daniel tells, that who ever he was before seized to matter. This is a strong statement, that shows that no matter what status you have in life, or the richness you’ve accumulated, being a parent is the most important job you’ll ever have. And it is sacred.

Daniel describes her as the most beautiful, effervescent girl he ever knew. And now, she was gone.

Transcribing emotions back into a perfume. As a form of expression, rather than words, or other mediums.

“I wish I could tell you about an inspiring moment of clarity, but the opposite is true. There was no sudden insight, no Eureka moment.

Aimlessly walking the rainy September streets. Feeling like every breath was struggle.

For as long as I could remember, creativity had been my one saving grace in times of turmoil, particularly inventing and writing down stories. As poems, short stories, screenplays, comic books.

Now my mind refused. It all seemed so meaningless, words inadequate.

And so the aimless walks in the rain continued, the only respite during a time I hardly remember otherwise.

Instead there I was, lost and the world made no sense.”

The rain

Rain had always belonged to the two of them. Daniel remembers Ava as a baby, swaddled in her warm blanket, sitting on her changing table with wide, amazed eyes as her very first rain pattered against the window. As she grew up, she sent him photos of rain. When they could, they walked in it together, in Los Angeles, in New York, and in Boston after one of her most difficult surgeries.

On one of those walks, a thought returned to him very clearly: no matter what she had to face, Ava never gave up. She carried on.

“I still couldn’t tell stories, but rain had been such a comfort to me for such a long time.”

Translating an emotion as complex as grief into an olfactory composition without becoming literal.

Déluge was never meant to smell like grief. The goal was to capture a very specific experience: walking the concrete city streets when it’s the only place where you feel you can draw a breath. The scent of wet concrete, damp earth, the freshness of the cool air, the lilting scent of flowers growing out of sight.

“My great fortune was that Andreas Wilhelm, the award-winning Swiss perfumer renowned for his bold creativity, didn’t politely ask me to vacate his booth when I met him at Esxence in Milan in 2023. Instead he invited me to his lab in Zurich the following week.

Perfume, like film, is a collaborative art. In screenwriting we learn very early on (or later on but then the hard way) that we may politely hint at performance nuances, angles, specific shots and edits. But this is the domain of actors, directors, cinematographers and editors.

Similarly, Déluge was never in danger of trying to just express grief. If the brief had asked for it, Andreas would have found a way to translate it artistically without being cloying. He’s truly a master of his art.”

Andreas Wilhelm

Comfort

“I’ll always remember sitting at his lab in Zurich and Andreas, a father himself, grew teary eyed, then asked me to describe the scene as vividly as I could manage in an olfactory brief.

When I hesitated, Andreas, perhaps sensing my fear, added: “It doesn’t have to be long”.

The fact that we could talk and feel the emotions we were looking for together allowed me to write the short brief that frankly no longer mattered at that point.

Andreas had already heard what he needed to hear: an original petrichor, full of heartbreak, longing and the faint hope of redemption.

What he created simply stunned me. It still stuns me every time I smell it.”

The line between personal vulnerability and personal expression.

“It’s hard to overstate how much I agonized over this exact topic. Déluge was the first fragrance idea I’d ever had. But when I had to tell people its story, my voice broke. I teared up.

Déluge had been created as a life raft. Something to hold on to in a flood that overwhelmed me. As odd as it sounds to admit, the reality of becoming a brand owner, of telling my daughter’s story to strangers who were merely interested in a nice scent, had somehow never occurred to me.

Several times when I did try to tell the story of Déluge, I was told by industry people that it would be better not to tell it.

“People love petrichor! I can sell this petrichor, but I can’t sell that story. It’s just too much”.”

Finding the strength.

“Last year, I travelled from Los Angeles to Stockholm to attend Polaris, our first ever perfume event. Until the last minute I agonized over telling Déluge’s story. What if people felt blindsided by a scent that started with a painful tragedy? Even worse, what if they felt this tragedy was being exploited for commercial gain?

But the Polaris experience turned out to be healing and encouraging in a way I could never have expected or hoped for. People came to the table and listened. They were present, engaged, emotionally invested. There were tears and many priceless exchanges I’ll treasure forever.”