MAISON FRANCIS KURKDJIAN PARIS - Pour le Matin

Also called exotic verbena, this evergreen plant can reach over ten meters and grows in tropical areas of Asia. Its large leaves give clusters of small green fruits. These are distilled to obtain a fresh and delicate oil, tarter and greener than a lemon, oscillating between verbena and lemongrass. It also has accents of candied lemons, zesty pie or tangy sweets. It is ideal to underline citrus top notes and blends perfectly with Colognes.

A distant cousin of the rose, this thorny shrub is very fragrant in spring. Within a few days, it is covered with a multitude of small white flowers, sometimes resembling snow, and exhales a bitter almond scent. But its flowers are mute, that is to say too fragile to extract the perfume. The art of the perfumer is to recreate the sensation of passing by the tree in full bloom. Francis Kurkdjian combines sweet, flowery, slightly honeyed notes with almond accents that express themselves in the heart of the perfume.

There are several ways to process the Citrus Aurantium flower. By volatile solvent extraction to obtain the orange blossom absolute, or by steam distillation for the orange blossom oil. But beware, connoisseurs know it well: we don't speak of orange blossom oil but of neroli oil, since the Princess of Nerola, enraptured by its fragrance, brought it into fashion at the time of French king Louis XIV. The absolute is used for middle and base notes, with solar floral overtones, in turn fresh or heady, honeyed and animalic. Neroli oil has much more citrusy and green floral inflections, used in the top and heart notes of a fragrance. It is often associated with the smell of sun-dried sheets and flavored madeleines.

Lavandula X Intermedia is a hybrid cross between fine lavender and lavender aspic, which provides better yields. Its small violet-blue flower heads as well as its flower sachets sold in local markets are the emblem of Provence. Its purplish flower spikes are carried by long stems. Steam distillation produces an aromatic, fresh, herbaceous, camphorated and aniseed oil. This heart note is found in Colognes as well as in the Fougère accord, emblematic of men's fragrances.