Lily of the Valley, a Flower Not So Mute After All?
Lily of the valley long refused to lend its fragrance to perfumers. But is it really a “mute flower”? Some took up the challenge of making it spill the beans… A successful bet for the Nantes-based house AB 1882 and the essential-oils company Le Sourceur. On 25 May 2022, for the first time, a lily-of-the-valley absolute was obtained naturally in Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu.
It is a true revolution for perfumery and for the market-gardening world simultaneously, because on a large scale, this use of lily of the valley would make it possible to give it value so that it is no longer only the star of a single day, each 1st of May.
To harvest the precious essence, the ancestral process of enfleurage was brought back up to date. Demanding in time and resources, it had ceased to be used around 1930.
Enfleurage, What’s That?
The delicate bells of the market gardeners Jean-François and Charles Vinet were meticulously selected, cut and arranged by volunteers on frames coated with vegetable fat. For eleven days, the flowers were replaced daily to guarantee their freshness. Result: the vegetable fats found themselves saturated with odorous molecules. “It’s like butter in the fridge, which can take on the smell of certain foods,” explains Marielle Ravily, chemical engineer and co-founder of AB 1882.
Then the fats went through a bain-marie, being liquefied and enhanced with essential oils and alcohol, the latter making it possible to hold the perfumed molecules. Once the alcohol was distilled, a rare lily-of-the-valley absolute revealed itself for the first time.
Making Lily of the Valley Shine Through Craftsmanship
While this process is much longer and more costly than that of the chemical synthesis of lily of the valley (no fewer than 50,000 sprigs of the flower were used!), it is also a form of craftsmanship that does far more honour to the scent of the little bell. For while the perfumers have the hope of creating a very real lily-of-the-valley perfume, they do not for all that want to denature the flower—quite the contrary: it is a matter of magnifying its soft natural fragrance.
Not without having greatly awakened the interest of other perfumers at the idea of finally being able to work with this beautiful raw material, AB 1882 and Le Sourceur are now trying to get their hands on the best lily-of-the-valley absolute in order to multiply its production tenfold.
And Then?
The Nantes house wishes to market its first lily-of-the-valley perfume in the course of 2024. Moreover, it is decided: it is to Bel Été, a perfume formulated in 1926 by Alexis Biette (the great-grandfather of Marie Giffo, director and co-founder of the house), that the honour will fall of being the brand’s—and the market’s—first natural lily-of-the-valley perfume!
If the May flower long held its tongue, this is in all likelihood no longer for long: the heyday of natural lily of the valley in perfumery is only beginning.
