Why fragrances with green notes will be ubiquitous by 2023

Fifty Shades of Green City and Countryside

Imagine, if you will: a path winding through a dense verdant forest, wet from the rain. A geranium leaf crushed between your fingers. A freshly mowed lawn with blades of grass laid underfoot, as soft as fur. A greenhouse full of plants that are almost photosynthesizing. Now inhale – that’s the smell of green. Would you wear it on your wrist?

Like all perfume types from amber to chypre to ouzo, green scented perfumes have historically wavered with the popularity of the zeitgeist. Green notes first sprouted in perfumery in the 1940s – the original Miss Dior, introduced in 1947, was both fresh and herbal with floral notes, while Carven’s Ma Griffe made a big splash when thousands of tiny herbs were dropped from a plane flying over Paris Parachute contained a sample of it in 1946, also particularly green, with notes of happy sage and vetiver. But the real milestone was Pierre Balmain’s Vent Vert, created by maverick perfumer Germaine Cellier (also the mastermind behind Robert Piguet’s stunning Fracas) and launched in 1947. unique, and its spring evocation of vitality resonates perfectly with the optimism of post-war Europe.

The next wave of green came in the 1970s, the same decade that gave us Earth Day, the rise of ecological awareness, and the major houseplant craze in interior decoration. As with many things, Coco Chanel was at the forefront: Chanel No. 19, now considered one of the greatest masterpieces of 20th century perfumery, was launched in 1971, when she was 87 years old (No. 19 is a tribute to August) 19 years old, her birthday). Its main line is a vivid green element contrasted with an earthy, powdery floral fragrance that includes a large number of extremely expensive and distinctive iris flowers. It is followed by Estée Lauder Alliage, a green chypre with wormwood, oakmoss and vetiver; Sisley Eau de Campagne, formulated by the famous perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, full of wild herbs, basil, tomato leaves and geranium, which makes you feel like you are in the countryside at first smell; Halston by Halston, whose original formula in 1975 was sprayed with green leaves and fresh mint and Chanel Cristalle (tagline: “a brilliant explosion of fragrant energy”), which begins with a gorgeous, transparent wash of basil and bitter orange leaves that Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge says “brings complexity to the floral scent of hyacinths” that blossoms at the heart of the scent.

Under Polge’s esteem, the green notes “bring luminosity to the fragrance, as well as a sense of pleasure.” Perhaps that’s why they are once again beginning to flourish in fine perfumery. At the height of Covid, industry trackers reported an increase in stronger, more intense perfumes – spicy, smoky, amber clouds that could enter nostrils covered by masks, or temporarily lose the ability to smell. But the Covid era has also given us a new appreciation for nature, and while there was a time when it was logical to want to wrap ourselves in warm, comforting scents, we should now be ready to shed those layers and emerge from them. Chrysalis becomes something fresh, bright and very energizing.

“Green scents connect us directly to plants, to nature,” says David Seth Moltz, founder and perfumer of DS & Durga , pea flower, limewater and basil. “Green is the earth, the grass, the stems and the leaves. It’s freshness. It’s vitality. That’s what we’re drawn to.” He notes, “There’s also a health angle, because our connection to the plant kingdom is one of safety, peace and rest.” Indeed, this is the basis for the forest bathing or Shinrin-Yoku concept practiced as medical therapy in Japan since the 1980s: inhalation of plant fungicides, airborne chemicals released by trees and plants, and terpenes, found in their essential oils, have been shown to lower blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormones. In other words, the smell of green is good for us. The fragrance Forest Lungs by British wellness brand The Nue. Co describes itself as an “anti-stress fragrance supplement” that utilizes notes of vetiver, pine and patchouli that research has shown to reduce anxiety, as well as Understory, a limited-edition fragrance by Vintner’s Daughter that came and went earlier this year and also inspired a restorative woodland adventure, with notes of conifer, laurel, moss and violet leaves.

Countless raw materials – both natural and synthetic – can provide a green element in a fragrance composition, just as many different instruments can play ascending C notes in a symphony, but the most common staple ingredients are the aforementioned Persian resin, violet leaves, vetiver Cartier perfumer Mathilde Laurent is highly regarded for her ability to capture the realism of plants and flowers in her work, and she is particularly fond of the wild forest scent of lentiscus or frankincense. scent, a shrub that grows in her native Corsica. “I’ve used it in many of my fragrances,” she says, “but it’s especially important in Luxuriance Riviere, which was inspired by my favorite river in my Corsican village. Every time I go there with my family and friends, I pick lentil leaves and give them to everyone so they can experience this incredibly fresh, green, hydrating, even almost garlicky scent. It’s very precious to me.”

Carlos Huber, founder of nice fragrance house Arquiste (home of the incredibly lush wet jungle grass candle Nocturnal Green), believes that one of the reasons today’s discerning noses may detect a range of greenhouse-worthy scents is the growing number of green shades available to perfumers. “As perfumery continues to evolve and technology continues to advance, extraction techniques are getting better and better, and that gives people access to fragrances that they never used before. It’s like, all of a sudden, everyone is talking about tomato leaves. And there are new citrus extracts that fractionate essential oils into green notes – for example, clementine, green orange or green lemon.” This ability to splice scents and separate specific olfactory aspects of raw materials allows perfumers to approach them from a new perspective that

Flowers can also smell green – daffodils, hyacinths, lily of the valley and mimosas in particular. For Laurent, green notes “are the difference between living flowers and cut flowers – they are the scent of life.” The fresh scents of the broken stems are lost in the distillation process because the green molecules are too fragile and unstable to survive, so the perfumer must bring them back in order to build a realistic portrait of the flower. For example, in Arquiste’s gorgeous Boutonniere No. 7 – a fragrance that smells so much like a freshly cut gardenia that you can almost feel your nose pressing against its soft white petals and waxy leaves – perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux created this lush effect in Spain by laying down floral scent of bougainvillea, violet leaves and vetiver.

Due to its light and lively nature, green fragrances are traditionally associated with sports and leisure fragrances in the spring and summer months. But they may resonate more in the colder months, when most of the world’s greens are asleep. Isn’t it the miracle of blooming buds that we crave most right now? The color green, the promise and renewal, reminds us that life will come alive again, full of possibilities. Bravanariz, a Spanish natural perfume brand, evokes the scent of winter Catalan forests with notes of Bosque pine, juniper, rosemary and oakmoss; Winter 23, from the niche British natural perfume Ffern, evokes the season with a swirl of tarragon, mint, patchouli and fir; Krigler’s ultra-sophisticated Good Fir shines with the evergreen branches of refreshment combined with the minerality of cool air.

Green fragrances also have some exciting modern notes. They are essentially genderless and, because they still smell inspiring and sometimes downright strange on the skin, wearing them can be a daring act.Frederic Malle, who collaborated with perfumer Ann Flipo to create the explosive green Editions de Parfum Frederic Malle Synthetic Jungle in 2021, says botanical perfumes can be tricky because “there’s no connection to the human There’s no connection to the world, they’re just avatars.” Inspired by the legendary and uncompromising Vent Vert and the basil, tarragon and Persian resin accord Malle found in Estée Lauder’s private collection in 1973, Synthetic Jungle presents a world of green so magnified it looks hyper-real, like a painting of Henri Rousseau’s jungle, but it still becomes sensual and skin-friendly in the base of its patchouli-siphonic fragrance . “Green fragrances have always appealed to perfumers,” Malle says. “They kind of play with them and then run away. Green is rarely successful; it can be very polarizing. So, it’s an interesting area. You know not everyone is going to like it, but who cares? Sometimes these things take on a life of their own and become classics.”

Laurent hopes that as the perfume world finally moves away from sickeningly sweet florals and borderline clichéd gourmets, green will become more common and understood by more people. “We’ve gone through a time when people didn’t think green fragrances were sexy enough or sexy enough. Femininity has made caricatures out of vanilla and sugar, which I always thought was silly. People are now starting to understand that femininity and masculinity are not these caricatures. Smelling more green in a perfume would be great because I believe it brings a lot of joy and serenity. At the end of the day, perfume is an art that comes from nature, and humans are connected to nature. It has a strong effect on our bodies and our minds.”

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