# Zoologist — Dragonfly > The original Dragonfly is Zoologist's delicate, aldehydic-powdery aquatic floral - a "fantasy chypre" by Puerto Rico-based perfumer Juan Perez built around rice, iris, heliotrope, and a rainwater acco ## Essence The original Dragonfly is Zoologist's delicate, aldehydic-powdery aquatic floral - a "fantasy chypre" by Puerto Rico-based perfumer Juan Perez built around rice, iris, heliotrope, and a rainwater accord to evoke an insect skimming a lotus pond from dawn to dusk. Unusually gentle and feminine-leaning for the house, it is a cool, pastel, watercolor-like powder scent with a vintage soapiness and a brief animalic musk twist. Discontinued and reformulated in 2021, the purple-juiced original is now a sought-after collector's hunt. ## Scent Profile The opening (first 10-20 minutes) is translucent and luminous: buoyant, soapy aldehydes lift a tart lemon and a dewy peony, with a "rainwater" accord supplying cool, misty freshness. Heliotrope is the defining material - its powdery, sweet almond/cherry facet appears almost immediately, and Gail Gross wrote that "the ability to work with heliotrope can define the skill of a perfumer." The effect is a green-and-purple iridescent shimmer meant to mimic transparent wings. The heart (1-3 hours) is where the pond-life imagery blooms: airy iris and a semi-sweet, nutty-grassy "rice" note flit over lotus, clover and cherry blossom. Critics described "sweet white clover, azure iris... And the grassy, nutty aromas of rice." It reads as a cool, powdery, slightly soapy floral - frequently called "feminine and ladylike," sometimes "old-womanly" or vintage. The signature accord is the heliotrope-iris-rice powder veiled in a rainwater coolness: a pastel, impressionistic floral haze rather than a literal wet-grass realism (one acclaimed wearer review noted it smells "like a time of day (morning)... A colour (cool lavender)... A weather phenomenon (mist)"). The drydown (3+ hours) softens into amber, oakmoss, sandalwood, papyrus and musk. A distinctive early-drydown wrinkle: a musk that is *not* clean white musk but slightly earthy and even animalic - odd in such a dainty context and a swing note for musk-averse wearers, though it fades fairly quickly. The far drydown turns sweet and "doughy" from the heliotrope. Listed notes that stay submerged: papyrus is essentially undetectable to most ("we couldn't smell papyrus at all"), and oakmoss is soft, so despite the "chypre" label this wears as a powdery floral, not a classic mossy chypre. Evolution is gentle and gradual - a slow dawn-to-dusk arc rather than dramatic shifts. ## Performance For an extrait, Dragonfly is deliberately restrained - it "sits fairly close to the skin in a house where the other juices fairly leap off your body." Projection is light-to-moderate (intimate, within arm's length); sillage is soft. Cafleurebon measured it dancing "close to my skin for five to eight hours"; wearer accounts cluster around 4-7 hours on skin, with the powdery base lingering longer on clothing. It is one of the lighter, more skin-hugging Zoologists. Heat lifts the aldehydes and freshness pleasantly; cool weather can make the powder read more vintage and "face-cream"-like. Because it's gentle, generous application (several sprays) is appropriate and the recommended strategy to get adequate presence. ## Wearing Context Dragonfly is a spring-and-summer daytime scent par excellence - "nice on a hot summer day; an aquatic note without the blinding whiteness of L'Eau d'Issey." That said, several reviewers note it's genuinely seasonless and wears well year-round given its powdery warmth. Occasions: casual daytime, office (it's gentle and inoffensive), and any setting where an easy, pretty, unassuming floral is wanted. It shines as a serene, "magical," watercolor mood-scent and an easy-wearing Zoologist for those intimidated by the house's animalic side. Where it falls flat: it can read too feminine, too soapy/"magazine-sample," or too quiet for those wanting a statement or a literal aquatic. Social-perception skew is feminine-leaning, soft, and clean - low-risk, low-drama. ## Comparisons & DNA The pivotal comparison is to its successor. Versus Dragonfly Edition 2021 (Celine Barel): the 2021 is a near-total rework - Barel shifts from this aldehydic-powdery heliotrope-iris chypre to a fresh-aquatic green floral driven by grapefruit, rice, basil and watery florals; the original is powdery, pastel and vintage-feminine, the 2021 greener, more unisex/masculine and "designer-esque." Fans who own both call them "different creatures entirely." Critically, Tania Sanchez in Perfumes: The Guide 2018 was unkind to the original, likening it to baby powder and disposable diapers - a dissent that some heliotrope-skeptics endorse. Now Smell This's Angela explicitly named Guerlain Apres l'Ondee as the inspiration, finding Dragonfly "a lot easier to wear" with a "similarly pastel-blue dreamy aesthetic." Other wearer touchpoints include Andrea Maack scents, Ex Nihilo Fleur Narcotique and Bond No. 9 Chinatown for the musk, and Serge Lutens Datura Noir for the powdery heliotrope. Within Zoologist it's a gentler cousin to Hummingbird (shampoo-floral) and the house's other "freshies" (Penguin, Seahorse). No designer or Lattafa/Armaf clone exists. ## Reception The original Dragonfly is one of the more loved and accessible Zoologists, though not without detractors. Wearer consensus praises it as delicate, serene, "a watercolor painting of delight," intellectual yet easy to wear, and the most wearable/romantic scent in the line; many call it their favorite Zoologist. The chief criticisms: it's "a powder bomb," too feminine, too soapy/"department-store magazine sample," and - from the harshest camp - the Sanchez "diapers" verdict. The animalic musk in the early drydown is a minor polarization axis. A recurring practical issue is version confusion: post-2021 reviews on the original's page sometimes describe the green 2021 reformulation instead. Critics were largely admiring - Cafleurebon's Gail Gross called it "a fantasy chypre... A glowing jewel of a fragrance," one editorial review called it "a very intellectual creation... Surprisingly easy to wear," and The Sniff and EAUMG were warm. Verdict for hunting secondhand: very worth it for lovers of powdery aldehydic florals and Apres l'Ondee-style scents - arguably the prettiest Zoologist - but try a decant first to confirm you're not in the Sanchez "diapers" camp, and verify you're buying the original purple juice, not the 2021. ## Versions & Reformulation The original 2017 Dragonfly (Juan M. Perez, of Exotic Island Aromas, Puerto Rico) is discontinued. It was succeeded in 2021 by Dragonfly Edition 2021, a from-scratch reinterpretation by Celine Barel (IFF) - a different perfumer with a substantially different note profile that shifts the scent from aldehydic-powdery floral chypre toward fresh-aquatic green floral. This mirrors Zoologist's broader practice (seen with Bat, Rhinoceros, Panda and the Dodo line) of reassigning an animal to a new perfumer rather than re-issuing the same formula; the two Dragonflies share the name, the lotus-pond concept and the rice/rainwater motifs, but are distinct compositions. Wearers members lament that Zoologist didn't keep both in production. ## Acquisition Notes The cataloged full-bottle reference is 200 USD / 60 ml. This version has historical or edition-specific availability, so confirm the exact name, perfumer, and release year before buying. Samples or small formats are the sensible first step when available, especially for discontinued or similarly named Zoologist editions. Buy through official or authorized channels when possible. ## Notable Facts & Lore - Dragonfly was Zoologist's 9th animal fragrance, launched in 2017 alongside the reformulated Panda 2017, and developed by Victor Wong with Juan Perez to capture "the poetic motion and radiant presence" of the insect across a single day - bright dawn, hazy midday, soft nightfall. - The brand even paired the launch with a poem (Cyrus Atabay's "Libelle, Grunes Feuer"). - Heliotrope is the conceptual and technical centerpiece, chosen as a test of perfumer skill, and the rainwater/rice "mystery notes" are part of Zoologist's signature habit of using evocative non-literal notes to suggest a habitat. - The fragrance became a minor critical talking point precisely because of the split between its many admirers and Tania Sanchez's blunt Guide 2018 dismissal. - Important factual correction for downstream use: the original Dragonfly did not win or place as a finalist in the Art & Olfaction Awards - Zoologist's A&O recognitions went to Bat (2016 winner), Civet (2017 finalist), Elephant (2018 finalist), and Bee & Squid (2020 finalists); the oft-quoted "fantasy chypre" line is Cafleurebon's Gail Gross, not a Colognoisseur verdict.