More rose water stories?
You forget that under the velvety petals there are thorns and stirs not always blue flower.
The rose is the capital lover, the woman, the mother, the lover, the young girl in buttons and a 100%
gender fluid muse
… In the Middle East, men spray themselves with it without losing a hair of virility.
Ambivalent, delicate and resistant, Cocteau called it a “rustic masterpiece”.
In flower, she is a girl and… in color, a boy.
She is childhood and passion.
Sometimes, it falls asleep a little on its laurels, but always blooms again, awakened by a new crush, spurred on leather, burnt with spices, sweetened with red fruits, padded with musks, eroticized with oud, even totally reinvented by the magic of chemistry.
The rose can live very well alone, but has plenty of suitors.
At the moment, due to her youth, she frequents fruit, the sugar and macaron family a lot, but as she grows up, she doesn't hate strong partners, smoky woods, spices, even vegetables, and sometimes goes out in a leather jacket.
And she often goes to bed with the musks.
They reassure her.
And us with.
From field to bottle
With the new craze for the natural, the essence and absolute of rose are once again at the heart of all desires.
"There are hundreds of varieties of roses, explains Francis Kurkdjian, the most educational of perfumers, but perfumery only uses two varieties."
The Damask rose (
Rosa damascena
) comes mainly from Bulgaria, Turkey but also from India, Egypt or Morocco, and the May rose (
Rosa centifolia
), more confidential, is grown in Grasse and North Africa .
The first is more generous, more powerful, with a spicy and fruity, even jammy facet.
The essence even has a little artichoke or blue chamomile side.
Read alsoFrancis Kurkdjian, Dior's bold new nose
The second, the
Rosa centifolia
, more petalled, more fleshy, honeyed with peppery lemony accents is also more discreet.
It is she whom the luxury houses protect like a national treasure by developing her culture in Grasse.
Chanel was the first, thirty years ago, to launch a partnership with a producer in the region to guarantee the durability of the N° 5 extract. Polge, the in-house creative perfumer.
Curiously, it is in N° 19, where the iris reigns, that we find the most pink.
Also in Misia.”
Today, however, he gives her the leading role in Eau Paris-Paris, "A patchouli rose with a very peppery, refined, clean, dazzling top note."
L'
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In an imaginary garden.
A whirlwind of “overroses” twisted with spicy notes, pink berry and vitamin-packed orange, Eau de Toilette Fraîche Irresistible, Givenchy.
An ode to femininity, floral and musky, Eau de Parfum À La Rose, Maison Francis Kurkdjian.
A symphony of natural roses, Eau de Parfum Thousand and One Roses, Lancôme.
Fabrice Cormy
In recent years, Dior, Vuitton and Lancôme have also contributed to the return to favor of the May rose.
It is not the most beautiful or the most colorful, but the most fragile and the most precious!
The most expensive too, from €16,000 per kilo of absolute to €20,000 organic.
Aurélien Guichard, who launched his Matière Première brand in 2019, is the only perfumer to own and cultivate his own organic
Rosa centifolia
: two hectares that he works with his family in the south of France.
“Radical Rose is one of the best-selling fragrances.
It even appeals to people who don't like roses.
Yet it contains an insane amount of
Rosa centifolia absolute
.
No perfume in the world uses so many,” he says.
In this not-at-all-innocent rose, everything is overdosed, the spicy facet with saffron and Jamaican pepper, which initially give it some sparkle, but also Indonesian patchouli and cistus labdanum.
“When we pick the roses, there is a kind of resin that settles on the hands.
That's what I wanted to transcribe with this dark rose, a little dangerous, genderless, with an incense side.
The fever, not the cutesy.
Angel or demon
We always say: “The rose is the queen, the jasmine the king and the iris the emperor,” continues Francis Kurkdjian.
It is a pivotal flower, central in many chords.
To make a lily of the valley, we start from the rose.
For fishing, you also need it.
Above all, we have a false image of her.
It is considered old-fashioned, even gnangnan, while the amplitude of its facets is infinite.
It's like the color pink… Between red and white, sugared almond and fuchsia, there are thousands of shades.”
Because she has a good character, we think she is easy going.
It is true that it gets along with everyone: other flowers, woods, fruits, spices, musks, amber, green, even aquatic notes as in Eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake .
Read alsoSeeds, sap, petals, stems… The benefits of flowers at the service of the skin
In reality, she is indomitable, versatile and always surprising.
"She is both angel and demon," says Christine Nagel, Hermès master perfumer who tamed her in Galop d'Hermès.
"To create something new worthy of interest with it, you must already be quite experienced," says master perfumer Dominique Ropion, who signed, among other things, Portrait of a Lady, the best-seller from Éditions Fréderic Malle.
“The rose is to perfumery what the nude is to drawing,” confides the latter.
You can make it something academic, boring or...
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
.”
It is so complex that Frédéric Malle has devoted no less than four chapters to it.
Lipstick Rose, by Ralf Schwieger, pop art and glamorous with its lipstick scent;
Rose & Cuir, by Jean-Claude Ellena, unisex and mysterious;
Portrait of a Lady, by Dominique Ropion, a voluptuous oriental with a raspberry-blackcurrant facet and a riot of Turkish roses;
and finally Rose Tonnerre, by Édouard Fléchier, a night rose that is causing a stir in China.
Alliances and irreverences
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The wake of passion.
The fresh rose of Ornano, a little lemony, dressed in a velvet of amber, patchouli and vanilla, Eau de Parfum Izia La Nuit, Sisley.
A cheeky rose that gives voice, between cherry and vanilla, Eau de Parfum Very Good Girl Glam, Carolina Herrera.
A drama queen who flirts with black truffles, Eau de Parfum Rose Tonnerre, Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle.
Fabrice Cormy
Francis Kurkdjian also pays homage to the garden diva.
Each bottle of its À La Rose eau de parfum contains 250 freshly bloomed Grasse roses, with soft and carnal inflections, and 150 Damascus roses, whose essence unfolds its pear, lychee tones... Soon a next rose?
"It will be the banner of freedom, benevolent, without thorns, and will not need to be aggressive to exist...", he admits.
Will it hatch at Dior, of which he is the new nose?
A mystery, but he does not forget that the beauty was Christian Dior's favorite flower, his eternal theme of inspiration and the symbol of happiness with his mother, Madeleine, and his sister, Catherine.
Read alsoScents and beyond reproach: perfumery goes into "green" mode
If the rose of Granville is reserved for care, that of the Domaine de Manon, in Grasse, is the signature of Miss Dior, cuvée François Demachy.
The May rose floral water distilled during the 2021 harvest has been entirely reserved for Miss Dior Rose Essence, a fresh, spicy and vegetal floral chypre in which its cousin, the geranium, is muted.
The perfumer Jean Jacques also knows that the rose can do everything: “It succeeds in all olfactory families, from cologne to oriental via chypres.
And remember that the rose-patchouli accord of Clinique Aromatics Elixir is legendary.
"Twenty years ago, I even invented a love story between roses and coffee for L'Or de Torrente."
Back to basics
Lancôme inaugurates Le Domaine de la Rose, a four-hectare ecological horticultural site, a biodiversity refuge open to the public where its totem flower will also be cultivated.
We will discover, among other things, the olfactory compositions made from the new Centifolia roses, such as La Vie est Belle Edition Domaine de la Rose and the exceptional edition Mille et Une Roses.
Created in 2000, reinvented in 2022, the latter aims to be the very quintessence of the rose with six species of natural roses, including the Rose Centifolia Bio, harvested in Grasse at the Domaine de la Rose.
Since then, Jean Jacques has become the exclusive perfumer of the Caron house in the midst of a revolution.
Rose Ivoire, Délire de Rose, Rose Ébène, Parfum Sacré, which sets the rose on fire with 6% black pepper… Over the course of the century, the brand has already stripped the leaves of the rose in all its glory, but always in search of new experiences, this year Jean Jacques is offering Rose Croquante, a cucumber rose, the quintessence of freshness.
A duo full of charm and originality for the summer.
Finally, no guerlinade without a rose.
The latest Petite Robe Noire Rose Rose Rose brings together the chic trio of Bulgarian rose essence, Turkish rose absolute and Grasse rose absolute grafted onto the original accord of black cherry, bitter almond and bergamot.
As for Rose Barbare, from the Haute Parfumerie collection, it is as intense, wild and colorful as
Carmen,
Bizet's opera.
Weddings of the season
With a prince:
once upon a time there was a fairytale garden, a trio of wild roses with an enchanting scent, a bite of Rose Prick by Tom Ford (1)…
With an adventurer:
he will take you on an olfactory safari in the wake of African Rose by Memo (2).
With a jeweler of scents:
for Rose Goldea Blossom Delight eau de toilette by Bulgari (3), Alberto Morillas has recreated an accord of rosebuds about to bloom, encrusted in a lace of spring flowers, white musks and cedar.
With a storyteller:
“If I love this flower so much, it's because it knows how to tell all the stories.
Never the same, it always surprises me”, says perfumer Christophe Raynaud, who wrote Mémoire de Roses (4) for L'Artisan Parfumeur, a youthful, joyful and crystalline rose.
With a renowned American florist:
Maurice Harris, who signs a collaboration with Diptyque.
Among the creations, Eau Rose (5) reveals unexpected notes of artichoke, lychee and chamomile.
With a refined dandy:
the one who gives Infusion de Rose de Prada (6) its modernity and delicacy.
A life in roses
1904. La Rose Jacqueminot by François Coty:
“The scent of fields of roses in memory of a trip to Grasse.
1932.
Joy by Jean Patou:
the benchmark French rose-jasmine accord.
1979. Nahema de Guerlain:
Jean-Paul Guerlain's great soliflore.
1983. Paris by Yves Saint Laurent
: an iconic purple rose composed by Sophia Grojsman.
1990. Trésor de Lancôme:
a rose-peach-apricot hug me accord, also signed Sophia Grosjman.
1993. Night Rose by Serge Lutens:
“Of silk, iron, blood, fire, flesh and thorns, haloed in gold, the rose reigns!
From High Antiquity to the present day, it has caused as much ink to flow as perfumes.
Through her story, it is ours that unfolds before our eyes”, declaims the designer who, from Her Majesty the Rose to the Daughter of Berlin, has never ceased to pay homage to her.
1999. Tonight or Never by Annick Goutal and Isabelle Doyen:
a 100% emotional rose.
2006.
Rose 31, Le Labo de Daphné Bugey:
very woody musk, with an aphrodisiac cumin note.
2008. Chloé Signature by Michel Almairac:
an ultra-luminous work that has given rose quite a boost by marrying it with peony, freesia, lily of the valley and musks.
2016. Louis Vuitton Wind Rose.
A beautiful fruity powdery rose signed Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud.