Precious ingredients

The most costly ingredients used to create fragrances are the oils and absolutes extracted from flowers. Like the grapes used to make the finest wines these wonderful ingredients can vary in quality and quantity from year to year, depending on the region where they are grown and the weather conditions during the growing and harvesting seasons. Demand can often exceed supply – and in a bad year when adverse conditions prevail the entire crop can fail.

The gathering of blossoms is usually carried out by hand and tends to be restricted to the time of day when the flower is at its peak of intensity. This is an expensive and time consuming process.

The two most extensively used ingredients in perfumes are jasmin and rose, known as the king and queen of fragrance respectively.

Jasmin is now cultivated worldwide but with over one hundred kilos of flowers required to obtain just one kilo of absolute there is rarely enough to meet the demands of the perfumery industry.

Rose is obtained from both Rosa damescena – and Rosa centifolia also known as Rose de Mai. Rose oil and rose absolute need to be matured for a year before use.

Vanilla absolute comes from the seed pods of the vanilla orchid. Vanilla is the world's most labour-intensive agricultural crop, which is why it is so expensive. Due to the high cost of the natural vanilla essences and extracts it is estimated that 97% of vanilla used in flavours and fragrances is synthetic.

Other precious ingredients can be found in the harvest cycle.