The lavender farm and distillery

 

Following on from the most expensive perfume in the world, here's my idea of scent heaven. In the hamlet of Les Agnels near Buoux in the Grand Luberon hills, lavender and the hardier lavandin crop is gathered and distilled in the traditional way to produce essential oils. For those of you who enjoyed the descriptions of the Distillerie Musset in The Lantern and The Sea Garden, here is the very essence of a modern version of the perfume and soap factory set in the lavender fields. 

Sheaves of lavender - and lavandin - are brought to the steam vats for the extraction process to begin. (Don't you just love the colour of the vats?) Some interesting local colour, too, in the protest sign propped against the far wall, saying, "Lavender is not a chemical product. No to EU ruling." Quite right, too.

Here is the basic product, after vaporisation and collection of the droplets of scented oil: no frills and a hint of the medicinal.

In The Lantern, Madame Musset was a herbalist, too, with a knowledge of the medicinal properties of natural oils. And here at Les Agnels, you can find the same old cures for ailments that she would have produced. A laurel leaf preparation for viral and dental afflictions, for example; lemon balm (Melissa) for migraine and digestive troubles.

 

Perfumed soaps, of course, and other beauty creams and tonics...

Then we get to the perfumes, lovely fresh scents made with lavender, and Luberon flowers, fig, amber resin, and a personal favourite for hot summer days, a Green Tea eau de toilette that manages to be light and fresh and sweet at the same time.

 

 

These fragrances are particularly expensive - in a Provence context, you could have two for the price of a bottle of wine in a restaurant, and the scent will last longer!

 

Then there are the room scents, all given names that lift the senses and transport you just to read them: Under the Lime Trees, In the Shade of the Fig Tree, A Wander through the Garrigue.

 

For more information and remote sensory indulgence, you can visit the Les Agnels website here. And for those who are entranced by the very thought of this place, the good news is that there are a number of holiday gites available for rent in the hamlet.

The world's most expensive perfume

This is an extraordinary bottle of perfume. Created by British perfumer Clive Christian for the opening of the Salon de Parfum boutique at Harrods in London, it contains his No1 perfume and has a price tag of £143,000. Yes, you read that right.

Under normal circumstances, the scent is marketed as 'the world's most expensive perfume' at £450 for a standard bottle of the fragrance. But this special edition features the signature crystal bottle covered in hand-crafted, 24 carat gold lattice-work and diamonds.

Called the No1 Passant Guardant, this scent is advertised as "uniquely expensive" and created with no reference to cost to contain "the most rare and precious ingredients". I'm sure there are some people in the world to whom this will appeal enormously. Personally, I'd be more interested in what these ingredients are and what the fragrance smells like but that information seems to be a closely-guarded secret on the retail websites.

All right, I know we should regard this as a triumph of marketing, and perhaps the bottle itself as a work of art. But I can't help but think I'd rather have a good artisan perfume, or a local distillation from the lavender fields. Something you can actually imagine before you even open the bottle to try it.

Forever Ambre

Perfume news: Ambre is back! A few years ago the Provence beauty product company L’Occitane discontinued their Ambre scent, to universal dismay. Well, maybe not universal, but dismay was certainly widespread. I made a point of asking about it in every L’Occitane shop I entered – in France and England, just to add my voice – and the response was always the same: I wasn’t the only customer asking for its return.

We missed this rich, beguiling amber fragrance with its wonderful sweet warmth and lingering caramel comfort. What had once been an everyday spritz, especially in winter, was now being guarded and used like a rare essence on special days.

It’s a scent that begins with top notes of bergamot and white flowers then quickly brings in the sweet tobacco of tonka bean and labdanum. The labdanum is the key – no, not laudanum, the opiate of past poets – labdanum is the sticky brown resin derived from the cistus shrub Cistus ladanifer, a type of rock rose. Even growing in the garden, this plant releases a wonderful scent, sweet yet citrus, and instantly reminiscent of warm Mediterranean evenings.

After about an hour on the skin, the base notes of amber, vanilla and cedarwood come into play. From there on in, it’s all musky wood and honeyed earthiness with more than a hint of maple syrup.  This is a scent that lasts but manages never to cloy. It develops into slightly oriental spice and caramel.

Centuries ago, amber perfume was produced from ambergris, the origins of which were very much less appealing. Ambergris was a waxy substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales and excreted. As it aged it developed a distinctive heavy sweet scent. It was also, for obvious reasons, extremely rare and expensive.

But in Provence, where the cistus grows wild, are ideal conditions to produce a labdanum substitute for ambergris. It could be made by boiling the leaves and twigs, or as an essential oil extracted by steam distillation.

My novel The Lantern and the novella The Lavender Field have their roots in the use of local plants in the perfume industry in Provence and I have L’Occitane to thank not only for returning Ambre to its shelves but for a small but vital detail that provided inspiration.

The idea of a blind perfumer, Marthe Lincel, came from the realization that there were strips of Braille on the packaging used by beauty product brand L’Occitane en Provence, based at Manosque. In 1997 the company created the foundation Provence dans tous les Sens (All the Senses of Provence) to introduce visually-impaired children to the world of perfume creation. In the novel, Marthe finds her true talent as a perfume “nose” after a visit to the Distillerie Musset from the school for the blind she attends in Manosque, although this episode takes place in the 1930s.

For most of the 20^th century in this region, there was a gradual erosion of traditional farming as young people moved to the towns to seek work in the new industries and factories. The Luberon valley is celebrated for its fruit production – from cherries, apricots, peaches and melons, to apples and pears – and the local specialty is candied fruits, produced on an industrial scale.

The fight to survive was intense for those left behind on the hill farms in a region that was poor until the advent of mass tourism. In The Lantern, Pierre - the only brother - takes off for better-paid work, Bénédicte struggles on at the farmstead Les Genévriers while Marthe finds increasing success in Paris.

But how did Marthe really make the leap from a small distillery making scent and soap in the back hills of Provence to Paris? What did her signature perfume Lavande de Nuit mean to her? This is the story told in The Lavender Field…and which will provide a surprising link to the next full-length novel in progress.

Lavande de Nuit

I've had several enquiries through my website recently asking whether the Lavande de Nuit scent I wrote about in The Lantern is available to buy anywhere. I've had to write back and say regretfully that Lavande de Nuit scent exists only in my imagination, and that I can only offer the key perfume inspirations.

Obviously there are lots of lavender scents, but my favourite is from L'Occitane de Provence. It's rich and sweet, and authentically redolent of the region. Then there is a perfume called L'Eau d'Hiver in the Frederic Malle range: this has the white scents of almond, heliotrope and spring flowers. The woodsmoke and vanilla comes from Serge Lutens' Un Bois Vanille. It is possible to mix either of these with the lavender (spraying in layers on the skin) - quite fun to experiment with the quantities of each, but if you do, go easy as the last two are both strong and distinct and easily overpower anything in their way!

The closest complex lavender perfume to Lavande de Nuit I've yet found is Absinthe Verte which is one of several scents in a range called A Taste of Heaven by Kilian. It's an unfolding blend of lavender and vanilla and thyme, with oak moss and a hint of patchouli and spices. Very lovely, very very expensive. But I happen to know there are samples at Saks 5th Ave in New York!

And then there's that fabulous old-timer, Jicky by Guerlain. Launched in 1889, it mixes lavender with a zesty sprinkle of citrus which dries into an alluring creme brulee note, but then after a while the vanilla hunkers down into smoky leather with a sexy animal note of civet. Dangerous stuff and a true inspiration for the fictional Lavande de Nuit.

The scent of memory

“Culture is about human nature, and people who love food and fragrance are acutely aware of the connection between the senses and memory.” So writes Michelle Knell Kydd on her exquisite blog Glass Petal Smoke, dedicated to the olfactory and taste senses. Here she introduces us to osmanthus, the dried blossoms of which "are redolent of apricot, lemon and blonde leather" and uses it to infuse sugar for cakes. 

She has devised a questionnaire about the sense of smell which really does make you think a little deeper. Michelle is collecting responses, so if this appeals to you, do feel free to send her yours. You’ll see how it works by clicking on this link to Glass Petal Smoke. Here, just for fun, are my responses:

What does your sense of smell mean to you?

It adds the final layer of sensory experience, whether you are travelling on the Paris metro, or cooking a lamb tagine full of spices. Imagine walking around a garden and not being able to smell the mineral earth of early spring, or the sudden sweet perfume of a daphne or narcissus. I agree with Michelle that the sense of smell is a memory trigger like no other.

What are some of your strongest scent memories?

When I was quite young, my family went to live in China. The vibrant colours and sense of the exotic in Peking, as it was then, coincided with the age at which I really became aware of my surroundings. The gardens in front of where we lived were full of orange marigolds and every time I smell their sharp, sweet pepperiness, I am five years old again. There was a shop not far away that sold toys and dolls in silk clothes, silk figures in boxes and sandalwood fans. I still have some of these, and they have kept their scent to an extraordinary degree. If I ever come across them, as soon as the box is opened, I am remembering seeing them for the first time.

What are some of your favorite smells in nature, cooking, your environment?

I love the scent of flowers: lilies, the heliotrope, nicotiana, and the dark red cosmos that smells of rich chocolate. Pine trees after rain. Rosemary and thyme growing wild on sunny slopes. Dried Herbes de Provence frying with onion. And wood burning: sweet fallen branches from the fig trees and logs from a dead olive and cherry; bonfires in the evening; fireworks; even the striking and snuffing of a match is delicious.

Do you have any favorite smells that are considered strange?

Old books have a slight mustiness, almost like incense. It’s the perfume of my days as a student, in the library of a Cambridge college, the atmosphere of rooms containing rare manuscipts and ancient tomes. That scent can be powerful in secondhand bookshops, too. It used to be exacerbated by damp cellars in junk shops we used to haunt in Greenwich down by the Thames when Rob and I were renovating out first flat in south London together, but it still carries the scent of the old about to be rediscovered. 

Describe one or more of your favorite cooking smells.

Baking: any biscuits or cakes. And also toffee apples, though in my experience they always smell wonderful, but are a disappointment to eat.

What smells do you most dislike?

Cigarette smoke (though I don’t mind cigar or pipe tobacco), oil and petrol, bad drains, old fishbones, and mice.

What smell did you first dislike, but learned to love?

French cigarettes - Gauloises, but they don't smell the same as they did when I was a teenager and the boys who smoked them were cooler than anyone in England. I've noticed that today's Gauloises and Gitanes have lost that rich, honeyed tobacco aroma and become almost as unbearable as Silk Cut.

What mundane smells inspire you?

Leather: the inside of old satchels and bags. The other day I came across a small leather shoulder bag I bought in Crete, many years ago on my first holiday abroad with friends. It’s a cheap, rough thing – but oh, the perfume of new independence mingled with anxiety!

What scent never fails to take you back in time and why?

I have a whole library of perfumes that will take me to almost any given year! From the Chloe I wore as a seventeen-year-old, to the perfume I wore as a designer-suited journalist in London: Diva by Ungaro, and which remains a great confidence-giver. 

What scents do you associate with memories of loved ones? 

That would be the smell of houses, the unique alchemy produced by lingering cleaning polishes and cooking and perfume of the people who live there. 

What fragrances remind you of growing up?

The strawberries that grew in every garden and field in the village in Luxembourg where I lived as a child (two countries after China – we got around). English sweet shops, fuggy with a combination of Fry’s peppermint chocolate and comics. Germolene, the disgusting pink ointment for cuts and grazes. And TCP for teenage spots: one of the vilest and most lingering pongs known to man.

What fragrance(s) remind you of the places you visited on vacation?

An endless list… I’ll just pick Youth Dew, a whiff of which takes me right back to Singapore, where I used to spend my university vacations with my parents, who were living there by then.

Describe a piece of sensory literature that is very magical for you.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind has one of the best openings I have ever read. It opens with a sensory bang, full of rotting cabbage and other stenches. And Prospero’s Cell by Lawrence Durrell, which is a glorious evocation of Corfu in the 1930s and a treasury of visual riches.

The power of perfume

Josine and I have been friends for thirty years, since a love of dressing up in lacy clothes and getting silly at parties showed we were on the same wavelength as students. Later on, of course, we would bond over the more serious issues of work, relationships, children…but there was always perfume.

Until I met Josine, I would drench myself in fuggy floriental clouds of Chloe and Dioressence on the basis that I liked a fragrance with punch and these instantly evoked memories of previous good times. Ma Griffe was childhood and my mother’s scent. Whenever I smell Opium, even now, (a boyfriend bought me a bottle of Opium and I was thrilled that he saw me as a woman who could carry off that powerful blast of sensuality) I am back at a Cambridge party wearing a slightly strange raw silk dress I have made myself, and anything is possible.

Josine was altogether more sophisticated. She was a Guerlain woman, even then, who knew all the scents and histories of this grande dame of Parisian perfume houses. Not only could she describe all the component parts of Apres L’Ondee, that melancholy old-fashioned iris and heliotrope scent, but she could wear too, though usually she opted for the racier Shalimar and Chamade.

My favourite Guerlain classic has long been Jicky. It was one of the first “modern” French perfumes when it was created in 1889 because it used synthetic oils. A bracing spritz of citrus and bergamot soon mellows into a wonderful lavender, amber and vanillin. Just delicious, though you have to watch for the point when it develops the same dungy tang that an excess of white jasmine can pump into a warm atmosphere.

It’s bad enough for those of us who use perfume as an essential part of our memory archives that perfume manufacturers constantly “update” their scents, even the classics. But worse by far when scents are discontinued. I still mourn the demise of Dior-Dior, that zingy accompaniment to those first months with my future husband.

And I’d only relatively recently discovered L’Occitane’s Ambre, with its gorgeous warm cistus and honeyed wood when it disappeared from the shelves. I found a near-miss at Senteurs & Provence in Apt: Lothantique’s Ambre. It’s lovely too, but for me, between the two it’s the difference in olfactory terms between hearing music played by an oboe when you long for the rich, round sexy notes of a saxophone.