La Vie en Rose

French rose and rose geranium

This perfume is inspired by Piaf’s La Vie en Rose. In the formula a dramatic vintage centifolia rose is held up by fresh sparkling rose geranium and a very rare novel aromatic material: yarrow. Yarrow is a herb which can produce oil that smells ambery and dark green. Parterre grew and distilled yarrow and geranium themselves in their farm in Dorset and managed to persuade a French perfumer (the same nose who composed Guerlain’s Samsara) to experiment with these. The result is the stunning A Tribute to Edith, call it a vintage experimental or engineered vintage.

Damask rose

A very good example of how different natural extracts smell from both the aroma hovering above the flower and from a note adjusted and trimmed to work as part of a formula. Baruti’s Rose spray is only about Damask rose and features the two fractions that can be extracted from roses: essence (derived by steam) and absolute (derived by fine chemical solvent extraction). This fragrance is a room spray and can turn the space around you into a rose plantation on a hot summer day: Damask roses at full bloom, aromas of warm earth, and green leaves basking under The Mediterranean sun. However, compared to roses adjusted to go into a formula it’s quite ‘adulterated’ with green, earthy, woody and so many other nuances that perfumers often remove or hide to make rose oil smell more like… rose to our noses.

Fantasy rose (perfumer imagining a flower that nature hasn't created)

A fantastic rose: perfumers, being the artists of scents often invent a note instead of using  natural materials if none of the naturals fit their vision. In Brulure de Rose (melting rose), some molecules have been carefully arranged to give you an impression of the life of a rose, from a green bud to rose at full bloom slowly melting into melancholy non-existence.

A drop of Turkish rose

The name can be translated as ashes of tea and with no natural tea used in the perfume it’s a theater. Turkish rose and myrrh represent the deepest and darkest balsamic nuances, cedar and pepper are the tangy woody middle shades of tea and cardamom and camphor are the tonifying top notes.

Try for an oriental rose accord

A graffiti rose (created in a lab), lots of vivid character, large scale, its outlines accentuated with dark shades of oud, saffron and myrrh.

Bulgarian rose

Rose in Megalium is very much part of the story, Megalium being special incense burned in the richest households of Ancient Rome, this incense would be mixing with the aromas of rose fountains and that complex olfactive luxury was indeed a sign of status. Carner as a house seem to favor Bulgarian rose, which is a tender, musky smell and use it in many other formulas.

Centifolia rose

It’s a woody oriental rose perfume and the themes are arranged in that particular order. You will smell precious resins and oud a lot in this formula and behind that arabesque screen of exotic woods you will occasionally get a glimpse of the opulent boozy centifolia rose.

Turkish rose/ Rose as an essential part of a chypre recipe

Ella is a classic leather chypre, the recipe of which requires a big rose in the heart of the perfume. A darker ambery Turkish rose was chosen to correspond to the animalic background stitched from ambergris, honey, civet and angelica. Venus in Furs, but told with perfume notes.

An illusion of a heavenly rose

If you've never found the rose you like, try this fragrance. All of the notes are combined to represent a fantasy smell of a heavenly powdery rose, and smelling Rosa Nigra you will think of roses, but it’s only a beautiful illusion.