Amyris
femme

Most fruity notes used in perfumery are actually recomposed in the form of an accord, much like mute flowers. The pear gives a fresh, crisp, juicy scent used as a top note in a perfume. The fruit has more or less fruity or green facets, depending on the variety the perfumer has chosen to evoke. Very often, the pear note is combined with rose oil to highlight its fruity aromas.

Sweet pea is either a white or a colorful flower from a climbing plant native to southern Italy. Its papillote-shaped petals reveal a very delicate, sweet, honeyed scent, also found in honeysuckle or orange blossom but without the distinctive floral facets. Sweet pea is a mute flower, which means that its fragrance cannot be naturally extracted. By blending different ingredients, Francis Kurkdjian re-created the scent of the white sweet pea, the most fragrant of the family. The result is a fresh, soft and delicately powdery floral note, with subtle honey undertones.

Its name sounds like that of an Egyptian goddess and yet it is native to the Caribbean, and Haiti in particular. There, local fishermen poetically call it "candle wood" because they use it as torches thanks to its highly flammable properties. It is sometimes also refered to as sandalwood from the West Indies. This is probably because once distilled, Amyris balsamifera exhales sweet scents that oscillate between cedar and spicy, slightly smoky sandalwood. A classification among woods that clashes with its botanical genus, the rutaceae family, which also comprises citrus fruits.

The graceful and fragrant white flowers of the lemon tree, the Citrus limon, blend a soft floral effect with the bright tangy facet of its fruit. Too beautiful to give itself away, it is one of the so-named "mute" flowers, i.e. one that does not give off any scent by extraction. It therefore required all of Francis Kurkdjian's imagination to recreate its fresh and lemony but also airy and sensual delicateness, by blending it with other notes. This accord is used as a top and heart note in a perfume.

If in the hearts of perfumers the rose is the queen of flowers and jasmine the king, then the iris is the empress. The part utilized in fragrances is not its flower, but its rhizome, i.e. its root. Perfumery uses the iris pallida, native to the region of Florence in Italy. After growing in soil for 3 years, the iris rhizomes are dried and crushed before being distilled to obtain an oil with a thick consistency, also called iris butter. This long transformation process and the very low yield it produces make it one of the most expensive ingredients in the perfumer's palette. The iris extract offers a very special floral note, between the violet and a soft wood, with very powdery and slightly chocolatey, cocoa-like facets. Endowed with exceptional persistence, the iris can be used in minute doses to add volume or in greater quantity to support a floral or woody accord.