Bee Archives - The Perfume Society

Oh honey, honey…

Rich, warm, luxurious and comforting, honey works wonderfully in fragrances to emphasise floral notes, or add touches of amberiness. And with the profusion of gourmand fragrances out there, honey-lovers can easily find themselves in sweet heaven. We love what the nose Christine Nagel has to say about this ingredient:

‘Honey has two facets – half devil, half angel. In Ambrée structures, it has a sweet, comforting effect, taking you back to childhood. But a small touch in a feminine structure can be extremely sexy…’

Are you already a honey-lover…? Then you’ll know that honey comes in so many different varieties, each taking their smell (and colour) from the flowers on which the bees that produce it have feasted. Orange blossom honey. Eucalyptus honey. Acacia honey: the variations are almost limitless, sometimes woody, flowery, herbal or even tobacco-y. The ancient Arab perfumers were the first to capture honey’s sweetness in perfumery, but today the honey featured is generally a synthetic note – one that’s drizzled sensually over quite a few fragrances in the past few years.

It’s over 15,000 years since man first harnessed bees’ busy-ness to produce this natural sweetener. (According to cave paintings in Valencia in Spain, anyway.) Symbolically, honey stands for ‘the sweet life’, prosperity, even immortality; the word itself comes from the ancient Hebrew word for ‘enchant’… When man and bee teamed together, it turned out to be a win-win situation: bees got a safe place to live (and a reliable food source, in the form of flowering crops) – and we got to harvest honey and beeswax in unbelievably impressive quantities: a single beehive can produce up to 200 kilos of honey each season.

Guerlain are known for their love of bees of course, featured in their utterly exquisite and iconic Guerlain Bee Bottles, which have been… ‘An icon for nearly 170 years: timeless, the Bee Bottle is more than a bottle, it’s a statement: a precious Guerlain signature and a craft symbol between tradition and modernity.’ What’s more, apart from using honey in their skincare and as a note in fragrances, Guerlain also fund a number of Bee loving projects to ensure the future of bees (and, therefore, crops – and humankind! For without the bees we are truly lost).

Guerlain explains: ‘First founded in 2018 and launched globally in 2021, Guerlain’s Bee School initiative was founded as a result of the brand’s ongoing mission to teach children about bees and how they positively affect our environment. Nearly 6,000 children in over ten countries have been able to learn about the various issues facing bees and biodiversity conservation. After discussions, question-and-answer sessions, workshops, and games to test their knowledge, each child receives a Bee School certificate at the end of the session. The programme encompasses meaningful initiatives and partnerships…’

With World Bee Day having been celebrated recently around the globe, and with summer scents in mind (now the weather finally seems to be playing ball), what better time to explore honey fragrances, with scents that evoke both the flirty innocent sweetness and the deeper, more ‘devilish’ side of honey’s character, as Christine Nagel so beautifully put it…?

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Nettare Di Sole

A deliciously unusual icy floral honey absolute that sings of summertime, the magnolia, rose and Sambac jasmine bathed in honey, as if infused with the sun itself, and rippled with that deliciously cool note evoking dappled shade in a courtyard. Glorious to wear at any time, I especially adore wearing this when the heat properly simmers.

£89 for 75ml eau de toilette guerlain.com

Floris Honey Oud

A really good introduction to how oudh can be used in a nuanced way – almost as a seasoning instead of the main flavour – this one is actually delicious (as in, if it came in a jar, I’d want to slather it on buttered toast and guzzle it, or perhaps slather myself in it and roll on a meadow). The dark, spiced honeyed note deepens as the oudh kicks in. Intensely nuzzle-able, there’s nothing whatever to frighten the horses, here.

From £22 for 10ml eau de parfum florislondon.com

[NB: Also available to sample as part of the Floris Private Collection set, for only £35, and including some of their most iconic scents].

Manos Gerakinis Methexis

The name ‘MEΘEXIS’ derives from ancient Greek, translating as ‘the communication between the divine and the human’. A feast for the senses, cocoa and honey luxuriously swathe fig, while blackcurrant ensures the perfect balance of sweetness, swirled into the reassuring woodiness of cedar. A sprinkle of cinnamon ensures this so-sophisticated, intoxicating indulgence of a scent is seasoned to perfection. Divine!

From £50 for 10ml eau de parfum shymimosa.com

[NB: Try samples of the rest of the collection in the Manos Gerakinis Discovery Set, where for £35 you can explore his other scents].

Sarah Baker Charade

An absolute stunner of a scent, there’s a mellifluous segue between hypnotic floral notes of tuberose and ylang ylang, generously drizzled with honey that brings forth their headiness and makes them swoon into the dry, grassiness of vetiver and tea. Nestled in the base are deeper notes of leather, amber-y warmth and resins resting on smooth sandalwood and snuggly moss. Completely beguiling…

£145 for 50ml extrait de parfum in our shop

Marc Jacobs Honey

Created by master ‘noses’ Annie Buzantian and Ann Gottlieb, the sunny fragrance opens with a refreshing bouquet of green pear, juicy, ripe mandarin and a cool, fruity punch. Then at the floral heart you’ll find a composition of orange blossom, peach nectar and honeysuckle, followed by a warming base of that gloriously golden honey, creamy vanilla and silky woods. Scrumptious!

Currently £39.99 for 100ml eau de parfum at theperfumeshop.com

Written by Suzy Nightingale

Guerlain reveals their Exceptional Piece for 2022: ‘Le Secret de la Reine’

Every year, Guerlain reveals their ‘Exceptional Piece’ – a creation in collaboration with an artisan which truly showcases scent itself as a work of art. For 2022 get ready to gasp at Le Secret de la Reine, created by jeweller Laurenz Bäumer – a wearable brooch with a fragrant trail…

While utterly exquisite, this piece might not exactly end up on our Christmas lists (particularly as there are only two in the whole world!) but we are doing a bit of pretty perfume pieces window shopping, here, and wanted to sigh at the scented delight of the piece all the same. Guerlain says:

‘Designed to be worn as a brooch or pendant with a fragrant trail, the diamond set Queen Bee hides a magic secret in its heart. Gently apply pressure on the pear-shaped diamond adorning its body, and its wings open to reveal a delicate lace of gold in a honeycomb pattern. These alveoli form a precious olfactory material which can hold one of Guerlain’s perfumes.’

Says jeweller Lorenz Bäumer:

‘With Le Secret de la Reine, I have made a very old fantasy come true.

That of adding another sense to jewellery, which is about sight and touch: the sense of smell.

Thanks to Guerlain, I was able to achieve this idea and to create the first perfumed jewel of High Jewellery.’

Echoing his sentiments, and describing their decision to use their iconic bee emblem as a ‘messenger of happiness’ symbol for the piece, Guerlain explains:

‘Exalting the Bee, the quintessence of the Guerlain spirit since it landed in 1853 on the Eau de Cologne Impériale bottle, this precious piece glittering with diamonds, in Onyx and white gold, creates the perfect collaboration between High Jewellery and Fragrance…’

Melding art and fragrance, how we hope more collaborations between artisans and fragrance creators allow us to wear our love for perfume in fragrant jewellery form!

Enchanted and looking for more gorgeous scented snippets? You can read the history of Guerlain’s bee symbolism and the fascinating story of how the fragrance house began in our brand page dedicated to Guerlain. Happy scented sighing!

Guerlain Cherry Blossom 2022 special edition is simply Bee-yootiful!

Fragrance-lovers and collectors the world over look forward with glee to the launch of the latest Guerlain limited edition Bee Bottle perfumes. Working with renowned artists, Guerlain encourage freedom of expression, allowing each artisan to interpret the scent with their unique adornments, turning each bottle into a work of art itself.

For Spring 2022 the Guerlain Cherry Blossom is joyously welcomed in a stunning pink flaçon that’s been individually adorned with miniature flowers, echoing the tender beauty of the scent inside. Let’s take a deep dive into Guerlain’s foucs on this annual fragrance ritual, and – given the numerous outside stresses we’re currently experiencing – enjoy the beauty with renewed bliss. Altogether now: and B-R-E-A-T-H-E the blossoms in…

Of all the rituals of the Land of the Rising Sun, this is the most poetic. Each spring, the Japanese gather to admire the beauty of cherry blossoms. Guerlain celebrates this annual tradition with an exceptional limited and numbered edition of Cherry Blossom in its iconic Bee Bottle. For the 2022 edition, Guerlain has asked the embroidery studio Kyoko Création founded by the artist Kyoko Sugiura to create the delicate floral adornment of its flacon, crafted by a community of Japanese embroiderers. A unique and poetic artistic collaboration between France and Japan.’ – GUERLAIN

ADMIRING CHERRY BLOSSOMS AT NIGHTFALL

‘Each year in January, the Japanese start following the gradual blossoming of sakuras from the Okinawa Archipelago in the south of the country to Hokkaido Island, in the north, at the end of April. Called “hanami”, which means “flower viewing”, the ritual is observed by people of every age and background. Families and friends gather to wonder at the beauty of cherry trees laden with snowy, pink-tinged corollas… Gazing at sakuras in the moonlight is an especially moving moment in the springtime celebration. As white as the moon that lights them against a backdrop of black branches, ephemeral yet as eternal as the cycle of seasons, cherry blossoms arouse a sentiment that is deeply anchored in the Japanese culture: mono no aware, which could be translated as “a sensitivity to ephemera”. A sensitivity shared by perfumers, whose art also captures the fleeting beauty of flowers.

A FRAGRANCE AS TENDER AS A NIGHT IN SPRING

How can the emotion born from hanami be expressed in a bottle? How can a fragrance of eternal spring be invented for flowers so fragile they do not yield their essence? This was the artistic challenge Jean-Paul Guerlain set out to meet in 2000 when he composed Cherry Blossom. A pink-hued eau de toilette, as delicate as a sakura petal, as limpid as a Japanese haiku musing on life’s evanescence. The golden moonlight of spring… Its glow is reflected by radiant bergamot, the olfactory signature of the House of Guerlain. Subtly floral, the precious citrus essence blends with an exquisite green tea accord that evokes another of Japan’s ancient rituals. A white cherry blossom at night… Reinvented by the Master Perfumer, its fragrance is faceted with notes as immaculate as a sakura petal in the moonlight: tender cherry blossom, powdery lilac, jasmine – their scent fills the air at dusk. Featherlight clouds crossing the darkened sky… The diaphanous trail of white musks carries the delicate fragrance, like the breeze carries sakuras, illuminating
the night with countless moon petals.

AN ARTIST INFLUENCED BY FRANCE AND JAPAN

Adorned with different ornaments throughout the years, Cherry Blossom has now become an exclusive annual rendez-
vous that celebrates, as much as the Japanese art of living, the peerless know-how of creators invited by Guerlain. A match of cultures, perfume and art that has long been cultivated by the House. For its 2022 Edition, Guerlain has given carte blanche to the Japanese embroidery artist Kyoko Sugiura and her studio Kyoko Création, to create a delicate adornment of sakuras for the iconic Bee Bottle produced by Pochet du Courval, the historic glassmaker of the House since 1853. A new variation on the poetic theme, this edition evokes cherry blossoms at night, in the moonlight, in a precious chiaroscuro of white, black, and gold. And for the first time, it has been created by a Japanese artist who masters the secular know-hows of both her country and France to perfection.

A COMMITTED ARTISTIC COLLABORATION

Especially since Kyoko Sugiura worked with a community of 18 Japanese women from very diverse backgrounds –
office workers, teachers, designers… Professional or amateur embroiderers she trained herself, and invited to participate in this unique project, turning it into a human as well as artistic adventure. The gesture was a lovely way to reflect the communion of her compatriots around cherry blossoms in spring… But it also expresses Guerlain’s commitment to the empowerment of women, by celebrating an art elaborated, perpetuated, and practiced by them throughout the centuries. And which expresses itself today with a contemporary artwork that brings together a community of Japanese embroiderers and perfume lovers all over the world…‘

Guerlain Cherry Blossom 2022, £540 at Guerlain.com and in Harrods.

This fragrance is the bee’s knees – literally!

Scientists have discovered that certain types of bees actually create their own ‘perfumes’ in order to attract a mate. And what’s more, a niche brand has just launched a Bee fragrance that’s already creating a buzz…

A new article in Science Daily reveals that scientists at the University of California have discovered male orchid bees don’t sipmply flit among the flowers collecting pollen to make honey back at the hive – they’re also using their wings ‘…to disperse a bouquet of perfumes into the air.’ And their studies have concluded that ‘the aromatic efforts are all for the sake of attracting a mate.’

Associate Professor Santiago Ramirez, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, explained that while they already knew many animals produce pheremones, the unique factor for the orchid bee is that ‘the majority of their pheromones are actually collected from plants and other sources like fungi.’ Science Daily suggests that ‘Orchid bees are master perfumers,’ and goes on to explain that the scientists reserach suggests that ‘the perfumes males concoct are unique to their specific species’.

Ramirez,and recent Ph.D. graduate student Philipp Brand, from the Population Biology Graduate Group, have been studying the mating habits of orchid bees for some years, in the course of their studies, ‘unraveling the complex chemicals responsible for successful procreation.’ What they didn’t expext to find, though, was a brand new discovery that possibly explains the evolutionary divergence of bee species: environmental perfumes (and we’re not talking ‘clean’ or ‘green’ beauty claims here, folks!)

In the study, which was first published in Nature Communications, Brand, Ramirez and their colleagues set out their case to suggest that the evolution of sexual signaling in orchid bees can directly be linked to ‘a gene that’s been shaped by each species’ perfume preferences.’

Brand commented that, ‘Our study supports the hypothesis that in the orchid bee perfume communication system, the male perfume chemistry and the female preference for the perfume chemistry can simultaneously evolve via changes in a single receptor gene.’ And this could explain why a single species split into two distinct species that we knew were linked, but had no idea why they had diverged. Ah yes, the power of that scent sillage is strong, it seems, even for bees. But how did one bee’s perfume-making prowess suddenly woo more of the female bees to his partiular, er, honeypot?

Explains Ramirez: ‘Imagine you have an ancestral species that uses certain compounds to communicate with each other,” said Ramirez. “If you have a chemical communication channel and then that chemical communication channel splits into two separate channels, then you have the opportunity for the formation of two separate species.’

Do make time to read the full article in Science Daily – it’s a fascingating read, and yet another notch in our understanding of the power of smell. But let’s not only focus on fragrances that makes bees feel like getting busy (buzzy?) with it; we perfume-loving humans have a brand new sweet-smelling scent to explore that’s perfectly themed – and although not inspired by the reasearch, as far as we know, happens to be perfectly timed, too. The Canadian-based niche house of Zoologist have just launched the latest in their animal-centric scents: behold Bee…

Perfumer Cristiano Canali has created a perfume that showcases luxurious amounts of labdanum, dollops of honey, a leathery orange blossom dusted with powdery mimosa, delciously rounded by nutty tonka and heady heliotrope.

Zoologist Bee, £195 for 65ml extrait de parfum (1ml samples £3)
Try it at Bloom Perfumery

So which honey-based fragrances are likely to get you buzzing? Read our page all about the history and use of honey as a fragrant ingredient, and discover other perfumes to try, for the scent perfumer Christine Nagel describes as ‘half devil, half angel…’