We’re just coming to the end of the season of picking this beautiful flower in our gardens – the stems are getting shorter, along with the days. Many a gardener’s favourite flower, the sweet pea: obligingly abundant, and so wonderfully fragrant. It’s certainly possible to capture the airy sweetness of sweet peas, or Lathyrus odoratus – which naturally smell somewhere between orange blossom and hyacinth, with a hint of rose – through a process of extraction. The ingredient perfumers weave, mostly into floral fragrances, is generally a synthetic replica – but to us, it’s still a breath of summer, in a bottle.
Smell sweet pea in:
Fragonard Pois de Senteur
Chloé Love, Chloé Eau Florale
Issey Miyake Pleats Please
Miller Harris Couer de Fleur
Nina Ricci Premier Jour
Paul & Joe Blanc
Photograph courtesy of Sarah Raven
