Ylang ylang & pear, in a lotion that lingers

Late afternoon in a Singapore garden, and the ylang ylang tree has begun its quiet work — releasing a warm, honeyed floralness into the air, the sort that arrives before you have thought to name it, and stays long after you have walked past.

It is a scent Southeast Asia has known for generations — worn at weddings in the Philippines, carried on night breezes across Bali and Java, folded into bridal baths and jasmine garlands. Paired, in this lotion, with the cool green breath of pear, it loses none of its character — only softens into something you can carry through a Tuesday morning, under linen, without the room asking where the perfume came from.

Mango butter sits at the heart of every Belantara formula — pressed, with quiet reverence, from the discarded seed of the fruit. In the Ylang Ylang & Pear Hand & Body Lotion it is layered with tamanu oil, copaiba, passion fruit seed oil, and a measure of hyaluronic acid — the whole composed to nourish at depth and wear lightly through a tropical day. Sulphate-free, paraben-free, silicone-free. Nothing here that does not belong.

Ylang ylang, alone and on warm skin, can read a little heady in the humidity of Singapore. The pear — cool, green, unhurried — lifts it, steadies the florality, and carries the scent from the hour after dressing into the hour after lunch. The lotion sits cleanly under a silk blouse, under a cotton shirt, under the kind of evening dress that asks, gently, to be the louder thing in the room.

Made in small runs, in Singapore, in recyclable aluminium bottles.

Why pear, beside ylang ylang.

Ylang ylang, left to its own company, is generous to the point of excess. It is what the flower was made to do — announce itself to the night, to moths and memory, to anyone close enough to catch the air. The perfumers' archives describe it as honeyed, custard-like, with a whisper of ripe banana at the close. Beautiful, and a great deal to carry through a tropical morning.

Pear gives the composition its breath. Cool, green, faintly waxy — it moves just beneath the floral notes and keeps the whole thing in motion. When we tested the lotion without it, the response was kind and a little sleepy: lovely. When we added the pear, people leaned closer and asked what it was. That small shift — from lovely to alive — is why this is a scent you can wear from morning through to evening, and not only to one of them.

Paired with the Ylang Ylang & Pear Hand & Body Cleanser, the ritual opens fully — wash first, lotion second, with a breath between them. The scent lands deeper that way, and the florality carries further into the day.

If you are beginning with a single product, we would suggest the lotion. It is the longer reading of the scent — the truer place to discover whether ylang ylang, softened by pear, has found you.