Roses, jasmine, lavender, & Co. – perfumes captivate us with their fragrances and constantly surprise us with their new compositions created by perfumers for us. Their works of art trigger different emotions in us and connect us to our experiences, situations and places. Narcotic, exotic and heavy – floral, light and fresh – or erotic, passionate and seductive. Some perfumes are simply unforgettable. But how do they achieve this effect? How are fragrances put together? A complex and exacting result requires the collation of individual natural ingredients from all over the world.
A search for traces will take you in all directions and to every fruit, plant and flower nature provides: orange blossom from Morocco, jasmine from Egypt and roses from Turkey provide oriental notes. Selected citrus fruits, such as mandarins, oranges, lemons and bergamot from Italy, Mexico and South America supply the desired freshness. Spices such as vanilla from Madagascar or cardamom from Guatemala create atmosphere, and fine woods such as sandalwood from Australia and eucalyptus from China give the fragrance its structure. Various gentle procedures including distillation, enfleurage and extraction are used to extract the required essences and essential oils from these precious raw materials and produce the perfume. This provides the basis for composing the most refined fragrance worlds. It requires much sensitivity and a deep understanding of the individual ingredients to be able to take the idea of a fragrance experience and make it a reality. Creating a new fragrance requires a great deal of knowledge about which ingredients harmonise and which complement each other. You must have an idea of which ingredients form the right contrasts to create exciting nuances without breaks. Only truly great perfumers have the talent and the skill to achieve luxury creations of the highest quality. This is how individual fragrances are created to suit different personalities, characters, occasions, times of the day, encounters, moods – changeable, variable, ever new. They celebrate freedom, like the 'Vibes of Freedom' edition of 'This is him!' by Zadig&Voltaire. They climb Mount Olympus, like 'Olympéa' by Paco Rabanne, who created a legend with the unconquerable 'Invictus'. With Carolina Herrera, the 'Bad Boy' meets the 'Good Girl'. And perfumes are always celebrating femininity, like 'Féminité du Bois' by Serge Lutens, which has been seducing people for thirty years, or 'Dolce Lily' by Dolce&Gabbana with sparkling pink lily. The 'Narciso', 'Pure Musc' and 'Musc Noir Rose' fragrances by Narciso Rodriguez – for her celebrate the naturalness of timeless rituals. All these perfume creations from the companies Puig and Shiseido are masters at knowing how to touch people and magically kindle their emotions and dreams. The passion of these perfumers for their craft is clearly felt. Their formulations are distinctive olfactory compositions of carefully selected top, heart and base notes, which are present in every perfume. Lavender from Provence, patchouli from Indonesia, sweet grass from Haiti or frankincense from Somalia combine to form a fragrant masquerade, revealing the invisible truth of a person.
PUIG, S.L. | Barcelona, Spain | www.puig.com
Shiseido Company, Limited | Tokyo, Japan | www.corp.shiseido.com
