Flowery Perfume

Have you ever think about how your perfume was made? To make such a perfect blend, the perfumer needs to combine several kinds of rare and expensive flowers and any other materials.

For example: “Guerlain Nahema (1979)” which inspired by a French actress, Catherine Deneuve, was made from May Rose and Damask Rose. Or “Jean Patou Joy” which contains pure Jasmine essence and May Rose from Grasse, French. These two kinds of flower can only be harvested once a year. And you may guess why this perfume becomes so expensive (up to $900 for pure perfume) and only available for limited edition.

The expensive material is the flower essence. Some flowers are so rare or need a special kind of treatments to maintain the expensive essence during the process. Here are some of those rare or expensive flowers that usually used by the perfumer of premium brands.

A. Rose

The best kind of rose in the world is May Rose (rosa centifolia) which grows in Grasse, Southern French and North Africa. The essence becomes so expensive since this flower needs a special kind of treatment. They must be harvested early in the morning before the sun comes up and the petals are still wet with the morning dew. They believe that sunshine my effect the pure scent of this rose. The other one is Damask Rose (rosa damascena) which can be found in Turkey, Bulgaria, Egypt and Russia.

B. Jasmine

Jasmine is the most popular essence among the perfumer since almost every perfume has a touch of this essence. The most expensive kind is Jasminum officinals or Jasminum grandiflorum. Several premium brands of perfume used the combination of jasmine with May Rose for the main essence before adding other scents. As an analogy, you need to combine 10.600 petals of jasmine with 28 dozens of rose to make 1 ounce of Jean Patou Joy.

C. Violet

The best quality of this kind is Borsari Violet from Parma, Northern Italy. The essence doesn’t come from the petals like any other flowers but from the leaves instead.

Violetta from Penhaligon or Channel No.19 and Givency L’Interdit use violet as the main essence.

D. Neroli

Also known as essence oil from the orange flowers. The most famous kind of neroli is Sevilles from Southern French, Italy, Egypt and Tunisia. Neroli essence is irreplaceable material for any classic kind or eau de cologne. This is a kind of very rare flower. 1.016 or Neroli petals can only produce 907 grams of essence oil. Even if we gather all Neroli in this world altogether, they can only produce 200 grams of essence oil. Very rare, indeed. This beautiful flower also commonly used on the wedding bouquet.

Pictures taken from: www.counterfeitchic.com, www.virtualviv.co.uk, www.banwnursery.co.uk, www.bakgrunder.com