How did we go so quickly from cotton candy to green peppers? Even faster than the generosity of the calf’s head in a gribiche sauce chirashi. The day the company Symrise, one of the world leaders in aromas and perfume, announced that it had “Imprisoned” the smell of vegetables in ingredients for perfumes, everyone smiled. However, vegetable notes have belonged to perfumery since theSisley Country Water (1976) and its very green and crunchy tomato leaf.
These soaring scents that smell good of the countryside were hitherto recreated by mixing several raw materials to create the illusion of vegetables: peas, beets and cucumbers, to name a few. The Garden Lab collection offers for the first time natural extracts of artichoke, asparagus, leek, cauliflower and onion from recycled food waste.
Nothing but the known, the recognizable
It will however be necessary to wait one or two years before seeing these materials integrate the formula of a juice. Some, however, are already incorporating a few vegetable artefacts in the midst of the woods and flowers: a root-like, earthy beet in Red from Comme des Garcons, a very salty celery note in Costa azzurra at Tom Ford. A seasoned nose will smell of green pepper, peas and asparagus in the very bucolic Unloved by Parfum d’Empire.
“The vegetable speaks to all of us. It smells of the good old days and the sweetness of soups from our childhood. »Olivier David, member of the Nez collective
In search of new emotions, the perfumer joined the chef in the vegetable garden. Vegetable point “Forgotten” swede style in your basket! Nothing but the known, the recognizable. In his collection Smell the Taste, Firmenich has already imagined a watercress, an artichoke, an arugula and even “A spinach absolute with watery tones, a little cucumber and violet leaf”, according to Fabrice Pellegrin, perfumer responsible for innovation in natural products.
Thanks to the technology of the living, which makes it possible to capture in situ a natural scent, then recreating it, International Flavors & Fragrances has developed a juicy cucumber and celery. “The vegetable speaks to all of us. It smells of the good old days and the sweetness of soups from our childhood ”, notes Olivier David, lecturer and member of the Nez collective.
Lucille Gauthier-Braud, Beauty Director at Peclers Paris, confirms this enthusiasm: “Carrier of a more lively sensoriality, the vegetable helps us to reconnect with the environment, especially since it participates in a vision not idealized but realistic and authentic of nature”.
The perfumes “Greedy” dredge our regressive smells, in the wake ofAngel (Thierry Mugler), who raised caramelized scents to the top of mainstream perfumery in 1992. Thirty years later, would the carrot seed mark the end of high-calorie recreation? In these times when eating well is established as a philosophy of life, vegetable notes play the card of an alternative, healthier and more upscale fragrance, while the UN has decreed that 2021 will be “The international year of fruits and vegetables”.