The bad green notes of consumer tests have long been ignored by global brands. But the trend forecasters had predicted it: the green movement reinforced by successive lockdowns has revived these effects of wilted leaves, wilted leaves, or cut grass.
It’s a sign: Frédéric Malle’s latest creation (Lauder) and the first perfume signed by Anne Flipo, Master Perfumer at IFF, is a green floral fragrance, very green even. While Synthetic Jungle (see p. 26) was conceived well before the pandemic, it remains revealing of the latent olfactory change that has been taking place for several years. «In the context of a demand for naturalness and less indulgence, more and more touches of green have been sneaking in among all the accords over the past few years,» notes Isabelle Ferrand, director of Cinquième Sens. For example, associated with fruits to sweeten and refresh them, with flowers to make them more petal-like or with modern tea notes. In the masculine fragrance, they confer a current freshness in contrast to the omnipresent amber woods.»
End of a cycle and a societal crisis. A typical example is H24«s green note from Hermès, for which Christine Nagel wanted to move away from a »conventional woody« scent. The scent takes on an aromatic and vegetal character with the green crunch of narcissus against an amber background. The color of hope also makes its appearance in Paco Rabanne’s Phantom (Puig) super-production, with an overdose of green acetate, fruity and zesty, which refreshes the lavender and vanilla duo. This is a molecule synthesized in the early 1940s… Looking back, it first appeared in 1946 in the fresh floral aldehyde fragrance Ma Griffe by Carven, with the underlying idea of evoking renewal after the Second World War. The other star ingredient was galbanum, also known as gum arabic. This resin derived from a wild herb from Iran that evokes the seeds of peas or raw carrots was actually launched by Germaine Cellier in Vent Vert de Balmain to evoke the spring dynamism in the eyes of young girls. A bit the same story as Phantom, just a few decades apart: the green notes often reappear after a cycle of a family of perfume on the background of a societal crisis. The green flowers typical of My Griffe broke with the floral bottle style of the pre-war era when the green chypre post-»cool years” in search of a return to nature was a huge success: Alliage or Private Collection by Estée Lauder, N°19 by Chanel, Anaïs Anaïs by Cacharel (L’Oréal)… Except that the supply of natural ingredients also depends on geopolitical uncertainties. When Iran undergoes its revolution at the dawn of the 1980s, galbanum suddenly becomes very rare. Little by little, chemistry takes over with other molecules like Cis-3-Hexenol, which has the effect of a cut lawn, or stemonine, the green facet of fig fruit; and cucumber notes. On the natural side, a multitude of ingredients burst with a thousand shades of green, such as the currant bud, also fruity and astringent; the Mediterranean lentisco or the violet leaf absolute, with notes of wet straw and green peas, cultivated especially in Tourrettes-sur-Loup (06). Not to mention the recent arrival on the market of ingredients derived from vegetables such as leek, peppers and tomatoes through upcycling or new technologies that renew the palette.
A tricky aspect that tests poorly. Nevertheless, gender is not very popular with marketing. «Green notes test very poorly in a blind way, because they are too raw and do not capture the olfactory complexity of rose or patchouli,» admits Amandine Pallez, director of fragrance creation at Bulgari. They need to be dressed to make them wearable, as in the very green but citrus-infused and iris-toned Man Terrae Essence. »Meanwhile, the auteur perfume house has also played its role as a pioneer by reclaiming galbanum, which is now available in small quantities.« Among the most notable are Margiela’s Untitled (L’Oréal) in 2009, Vero Profumo’s Mito in 2012, Corsica Furiosa, Parfums d’Empire in 2014, or more recently the brand Dusita and its Sillage blanc, an astonishing green chypre reminiscent of the old world. »Galbanum, like all green notes, is part of my style and I take the risk of a vintage perception,» says Pissara Umavijani, creator of the brand. Moreover, young people no longer associate them with generic perfumes that they are not familiar with. Although they all have a corner of nature in their olfactory unconscious. However, I have to smooth them out, which represents a long technical process.”
«The green types like Galbanum are to be used sparingly because they smell of grease, frying and synthetic. It’s harsh and no one really likes it at first,» tempers Alberto Morillas, Master Perfumer at Firmenich. For me, it’s a bit like in fashion: you get excited about it in a runway show but no one wears it on the street. »However, his latest Mizensir is called Vert Empire, in homage to the garden at Malmaison. But here, it’s the petit grain, grapefruit and neroli that provide this natural freshness, supported by aldehydes and musk to soften them and give them volume. «I preferred to mimic an impression of sap to please men and women who are tired of perfumes that are too “cottagey’. »In contrast, Anne Flipo (IFF) claims her inspiration from the green and chypre florals of the seventies for Synthetic Jungle. «I’m from the countryside and green is my element; it’s water, spring, life. Furthermore, there are as many chromatic greens as ingredients available in the palette. To write in a modern way, I used a thousand shades – galbanum, styrallyle, cis-3-hexenol, muguet, jacinthe, basil too –: in the end, they are all atomic bombs, which I melted down into an actual chypre accord. This required a long process of orchestration with Frédéric Malle to remain fluid. Green, of course, but one that breathes, that diffuses and that is no longer generic: the technically difficult conditions to be in the zeitgeist. » Laurence Férat
