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Gentian note is rare in a perfume, but as the mountain is beautiful, the bottles are magnificent
Gentian, the pretty blue flower of our mountains
Gentian is in fact the generic name for a large family of wildflowers growing on French peaks, all trumpet-shaped and mostly blue in color, but also red or yellow.
The gentian as we know it is blue, however it is the great yellow gentian which has been used for a long time, thanks to the maceration or the distillation of its roots, in the manufacture of alcohols such as Suze or Picon.
These same roots are also used to make a medicinal essential oil used to overcome stomach aches and other gastric goodies However, gentian essential oil is also appreciated by perfumers for its floral fragrances tinged with anise and a light a touch of bitterness while offering musky or honeyed facets.
Gentian note in perfumery: rare and original!
Gentian appears in very few perfumes, however it punctuates the fragrances it occupies with originality and multiple facets that open up according to the scented perspectives offered to us by the creators.
Gentian exhales its fragrances in both feminine, masculine or mixed juices, however the feminine fragrances with a gentian note are rather floral, like Aqua Allegoria Gentiana by Guerlain or even Eau de gentiane. blanche by Hermès. For Hermès, the ode to the pretty gentian is a tribute to the little blue flower which wants to highlight the multiple scented facets that it offers the flower between freshness, bitterness, musks and of course flowers. For Guerlain, which uses gentian as a heart note associated with pear and bitter orange, the fragrance reveals the fresh and mountainous facet of gentian.
Regarding masculine or unisex fragrances that use the gentian note, the traditional olfactory family of origin is rather that of woods. Thus the gourmet Light my Fire by By Kilian offers a note of gentian which completely shakes up the hearts of davana and coconut to create a heart note full of contrasts around tobacco and smoked woods. On the other hand, for Issey Miyaké and her fragrance Nuit d'Issey Austral Expedition 2015, the gentian note will represent the icy universe of the mountains in order to offer a fragrance that draws the olfactory picture of frozen lakes.
If the gentian has multiple palettes to draw thanks to its large olfactory rays, it would seem that, apart from Shiseido's Zen chypre, there are still many hidden sides for perfumers to explore of the pretty little wild flower of the summits. including the chypre facet.
