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Draw Me a Flower

Behind almost every successful perfume, there’s a tale of flowers. Roses from Grasse hand-picked at dawn, exotic blossoms with novel scents, lascivious tuberose with its heady trail, or a flower with a masculine outlook. Above and beyond the floral accords that we thought we already knew inside out, perfumers are constantly inventing new compositions, which may be tomorrow’s successes. Report by Nicolas Olczyk

Timeless

Jasmine and rose, but also orange blossom and iris … when you look back over the history of perfumery, certain flowers seem timeless. Already the stars of classic scents from houses like Patou, Lauder and Chanel, these queens of perfumery still inspire dreams. Not just for consumers, but for perfumers, too, who enjoy taking advantage of unusual, even unknown, facets of flowers that we thought we already knew so well.

One reason rose-based fragrances have always been = successful is that perfumers have such appreciation for this flower. In the 80s and 90s, Sophia Grosjmann, working with her signature flower, came up with creations that are bestsellers to this day, like Paris, Eternity and Trésor. Today’s rose is perhaps more enigmatic, less powdery, sometimes more evanescent or, on the contrary, heavy and sweet. Amongst the new classics in rose-based scents is Stella, which draws on the peony facet, and Chloe, with its lychee tonality in the eau de parfum, and a moist-petal sensation in the eau de toilette.

Noir for Bulgari, Tendre for Yves Rocher, mint-drenched for Jo Malone, jasmine would also seem to be an eternal blossom. Jacques Cavallier, the creator of Tendre Jasmin (for Yves Rocher), admits to having a particular passion for this flower. ‘For me, jasmine is childhood memories first of all, a scent engraved in my mind… (those) few blossoms, that my mother placed on my night table in summer, whose scent would wind up waking me up…’

Orange blossom has evolved in a very particular way. Less heady than it once was, it has become refined and luminous, and it now graces men’s scents to perfection. Like in Fleur du Mâle (Gaultier), where it is shaded with aromatic accents, or Infusion d’Homme (Prada), where it’s conjugated with powdery iris notes, another floral gem that men’s scents are featuring nowadays. Infusion d’Homme’s designer, Daniela Andrier, is also the source of Infusion d’Iris, a prize-winning fragrance. Iris shows a less earthy side than in earlier compositions, but it’s still green and woody, and perhaps somewhat mellower, as well. With its pale-green juice, Infusion d’Iris is perhaps the modern interpretation of Chanel N° 19… a fragrance that the designer would have loved to have designed, she confides, since her birthday is “on a 19th’.