Tuberose Mexicana
New Fragrance For February:
So, I just added a new fragrance, Tuberose Mexicana, our February scent of the month.
Tuberose: A Fascinating Flower
Originally from Mexico, tuberose was brought to Europe by the Spanish in the XVI Century, during the Age of Discoveries. It became popular in gardens there and in Italy until Louis XIV's gardener discovered it and reputedly brought it as a gift to the Sun King.
It was instant passion. Louis ordered beds to be constructed all around the wings of Versailles, and it is said that more than one hundred gardeners were solely dedicated to periodically replacing dying or spent blooms.
Tuberose And Versailles
A bizarre legend around tuberose tells how courtesans would faint while walking through the beds, so strong was their fragrance. Most likely, courtesans fainted due to their corsets and rushed back to the palace before sunset in the summertime to prepare for the evening.
But the fragrance of tuberose beds in Versailles became legendary. Louis asked to distill tuberose in whichever way possible to add it to his favorite orange blossom perfumes. And he kept it all for himself, not allowing anyone else to wear it. You knew when he was approaching; his perfume could be smelled before he entered a room and for a while after he left.
The Inspiration Behind Tuberose Mexicana
Mexican traditions rather inspire Tuberose Mexicana; royal associations don't move a needle for me. Coming from Mexico, it made sense to me to build a fragrance using other endemic materials in Mexico and other Latin American countries. That's why certain spices are added to this blend. These spices contribute to a specific task: reproducing the green aspects of the fragrance of the live flower. One of the most complex aromatic profiles, the scent of live tuberoses is challenging to recreate but not impossible.
The Construction Of The Fragrance
As a soliflore* project, I wanted to get as close to the living flower as possible. I also wanted to incorporate the actual tuberose absolute from enfleurage, which comes from India, and remain faithful to its greenery—it is a plant, after all.
The result is a green, spicy, and overly sweet-narcotic juice, with gourmand accords of peach and coconut, in keeping with the existing lactones in the fragrance of tuberoses. Tuberose Mexicana is a departure from the current paradigm of tuberose accords in the perfume and luxury home fragrance industries. Usually reproduced with high doses of methyl anthranilate and orange blossom ingredients, alongside overdoses of peach aldehyde, the green aspects of the smell of live tuberose require ingredients with a prohibitive price for the compounding industry.
Many luxury candle brands have versions of tuberose fragrances created from the point of view of the functional aspect of a fragrance that will dispense with the nuances of a refined juice produced by a niche fragrance house. For us at RHR Luxury, a luxury candle is a precious object to be enjoyed visually, not only for a pleasant fragrance but also for an authentic experience recalling, in this case, the live flowers.
Being independent and able to afford any material I want, I can use whatever I want to achieve the final results, regardless of budget. In all honesty, I don't have a budget. The budget is the final cost, and I don't pinch pennies when remaining loyal to haute-perfumerie.
RHR
*Soliflore: a fragrance built around depicting a single flower.