Step into Les Jardin Français with Officine Universelle Buly’s vegetable-inspired scents

As we predicted last year in the (now Jasmine award-winning!) article for The Scented Letter Magazine, How to Spray your Five-a-Day, vegetable plots have been a place of much inspiration for perfumers. Now, there’s a whole new bumper crop of L’Officine Universelle Buly Les Jardins Français fragrances to explore and enjoy – and we promise, you’ll really dig them…!

‘The French Garden’ is a new collection of six fragrances from L’Officine Universelle Buly that garland vegetable notes with flowers and musks, all giving off a morning dew freshness. The launch happily coincided with the publication of our own garden themed latest edition of the magazine, The Perfumer’s Garden – because really, ever since the pandemic, it has all been about how much we get from our gardens and green spaces we can access for our mental health; how they inspire us all.

‘A garden is like a perfect universe,’ agrees Buly’s co-founder, Victoire de Taillac (pictured in her own garden, below). ‘A paradise. A haven… Gardening means being outside in all weathers, with all your sense awakened. The smells come together and surprise you…’ Also taking the senses by surprise are combinations like Indian Cucumber and Syrian mint, offering ‘crazy minty joy’, in a cloak of musk, and Iraqi Beetroot and Egyptian Rhubarb, tethered to the earthiness of patchouli. Or enjoy that note du jour, geranium, adding an extra dash of green to Oriental Watercress & Sardinian Parsley.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the notes (like rhubarb, carrot and cucumber) have been used for many years by noses in their creations, while others seem more peculiar at first: sweet potato? It seemed incongruous, but oh it works amazingly well! They all do, having been expertly blended to achieve an almost photo-realistic encounter at first sniff, which then melds with your skin to become the fine fragrances they truly are. Basically put, no matter which you plump for, we promise you will NOT end up smelling like a soup or bowl of salad!

The project began when Buly co-founder Ramdane Touhami bid on an antique seed box in an auction. Having won it, he wondered if these precious seeds collected over hundreds of years could still be planted. Sadly that experiment didn’t flourish, but it did plant the seed of an idea: what if their next fragrances could reflect the love we all had for our gardens and green spaces during lockdown? A scented escapism in every spritz?

 

“Les Jardins Français” brings back to life an intoxicating and unique palette of garden fragrances. They all seem to be seized by the morning dew during a morning stroll through the vegetable garden and orchard, between rows of plants coming from the farthest ends of the world, acclimatised since Antiquity by patient monks, meticulous collectors and erudite healers, all genius gardeners and gatherers. Like a miraculous harvest in a universal garden, with freshly raked paths adorned with rare flowers, these armfuls of familiar vegetables and simple herbs, these aromatic and sunny delicious bouquets delight the senses and the heart.

 

 

 

 

Les Jardin Français is available online at www.buly1803.com and at their Selfridges counter: £145 for 75ml. La Sizaine collection of six x 9ml travel perfumes is also available for £108. The perfect way to sample the while collection (because you will need to smell them all!)

Since the launch of the fragrances, there’s been another crop of newness with Savon Superfin soaps and the divinely moisturising Lait Virginal to complement. One thing’s for certain – this growing L’Officine Buly Les Jardins Français collection is un-beet-able. [Apologies]

Written by Suzy Nightingale

A bumper crop of vegetable patch perfumes to spray your five a day!

There’s a veritable glut of vegetable notes cropping up in perfumes lately, from beetroots and carrots through to artichokes and even cauliflowers in this brand new gourmand category of scents. If you’ve over-indulged on rich food, consider a salad, and (far more enjoyable) getting your greens in fragrant form.

Like any other trend, newness in fragrance can be traced back through cultural patterns, a certain shift in the zeitgeist that suggests something’s in the air. One of the major happenings has been a gardening and grow-your-own vegetable boom in the UK that began during lockdowns and shows no signs of slowing. Google reported that searches relating to how to grow vegetables doubled during May 2020 to May 2021, while new research from beauty and naturopathic product producers Weleda, meanwhile, reveals that in 2021, ‘26.7 million Britons grew their own fruit, veg and herbs’, with almost two thirds claiming that ‘connecting with nature has had a positive impact on their mood.’

Leaps in technology have given perfumers access to new aroma molecules, which for the first time allow natural extracts of vegetable notes to be used in perfumery. To read even more about this remarkable vegetable revolution in the perfume world, take a look at the Spray Your Five a Day feature, which appeared in the late summer issue of The Scented Letter magazine; but meanwhile we urge you to seek out some of this bumper crop as your New Year’s scent resolution…

 

 

 

Salvatore Ferragamo Giungle di Seta (pea)
Inspired by Ferragamo’s exotic silk prints, the verdant sweetness of pea shoots entwine jungle vines, tempered by the powdery familiarity of peony: nature, tamed.

£86 for 100ml eau e parfum ferragamo.com

 

 

Shay & Blue Clementine (watercress)
Succulent citrus wreathed in swags of laurel leaves and the bright, peppery green of watercress; flagging spirits further revived via petitgrain’s piquant sunshine.

From £25 for 10ml eau de parfum shayandblue.com

 

 

Freddie Albrighton Someone Else’s Flowers (watercress, radish)
Rain-washed radishes, watercress and plucked peapods photosynthesise to a florist’s shop of snapped stalks and tin buckets: happy-making bouquets yet to be.

£102 for 50ml eau de parfum freddiealbrighton.com

 

 

Diptyque Eau Rose Eau de Parfum (artichoke)
Artichoke was added to enhance the original rose oil – fleshy, green, slightly bitter, it speaks of melancholy moments wandering walled gardens, arboreal amour.

£140 for 75ml eau de parfum diptyque.com

 

To the Fairest Élan Vital (greens/nettle)
A settling of greens and grounding vetiver on forest-y floors, the gathering of soft moss and patchouli to line a cosy bolthole with, a cover of golden leaves.

£85 for 50ml eau de parfum tothefairest.com

 

 

Comme des Garçons Rouge (beetroot)
Familiar notes are daringly subverted as blood red berries and earthy beetroot meet supremely calming swirls of iced incense and charred leather.

£120 for 100ml eau de parfum harveynichols.com

 

 

Jack Perfume Covent Garden (carrot)
The insouciant naughtiness of Withnail’s ‘Camberwell carrot’ becomes a market stroll, munching on vegetables as an aromatic, ginger-tinged breeze excites.

£95 for 100ml eau de parfum ab-presents.com

 

 

Bohoboco Wild Carrot Oud (carrot)
Carrots ripped out with roots, clods and bundled in newspaper, nestled in the crook of a leather-clad elbow, biked to a pipe-smoking lover down winding country lanes.

£96.50 for 50ml parfum frmoda.com

 

 

 

Maya Njie Voyeur Verde (fennel)
The comfort of cut grass and freshly washed car leather, aniseed sweets sucked on
the back seat, windows rolled-down to drink in forest air – home in time for tea.

£95 for 50ml eau de parfum mayanjie.com

Try a sample of Voyeur Verde in the Maya Njie Discovery Set for £34

 

 

L’Atelier Parfum Verte Euphorie (carrot)
The instant WHOOSH of sunshine-y citrus presages leafiness and crunchy carrot in the heart, earthy sweetness swathed in fluffiness on the softly musky base.

£59 for 50ml eau de parfum qvcuk.com

 

 

Roger & Gallet Verveine Utopie (fennel)
Fronds of licoricey fennel tickle the senses, the herbaceous verdancy rippled with spices and fringed with decadence as wormwood-infused absinthe has its way.

£127.50 for 500ml extrait de Cologne escentual.com

 

 

Stories No.2 (tomato leaf / greenhouse)
The soothing steam of a childhood memory: grandfather’s greenhouse, his pipe smoke encircling tomato plants, rose cuttings, the joy of running barefoot.

£75 for 30ml eau de parfum in our Shop

 

 

DS & Durga Bistro Waters (bell peppers)
A savoury special of juicy green peppers and aromatic, just-chopped herbs with undercurrents of fancy cocktails to follow, late-night lock-ins and snogging the chef.

£148 for 50ml eau de parfum libertylondon.com

 

 

Paco Rabanne Fabulous Me (pumpkin)
Eschewing showiness, a warm snuggle that speaks of cosiness, silky sandalwood wrapped around fleshy pumpkin; rhubarb’s tartness tempering the sweetness.

 

 

4160 Tuesdays Le Jardin de Monsieur McGregor (cucumber/celery)
Mr McGregor’s pipe smoke trail traces a rambunctious bunny through a Lake District garden: leafy greens, creamy mushrooms and nibbled strawberries.

£70 for 30ml eau de parfum 4160tuesdays.com

 

Written by Suzy Nightingale