Basil

Small and large stories surrounding basil

The Egyptians, keen botanists and great enthusiasts of aromatic plants, are said to have imported this small Indian plant for its medicinal, culinary and also olfactory properties. As early as the 2nd century, the Romans used basil for multiple purposes.
However, in the Middle Ages, basil was considered one of the plants of witchcraft. A sacred power still preserved in certain regions of Africa where basil is used to ward off bad luck. In India, on the other hand, it is the object of a mystical cult where every Vishnuite household has, for good luck, a pot of basil at its window that is greeted every day!
In France, basil is celebrated far more for its culinary properties at the heart of numerous Mediterranean recipes than for its mystical powers. Its unique fresh and anise-like scent made it, from the earliest botanical distillation methods, an essential oil highly prized by perfumers eager for powerful fragrances.

Basil: an essential ingredient in masculine aromatic notes!

Aromatic notes have been highly prized for decades in numerous masculine fragrance ranges. A full-fledged olfactory family for gentlemen, aromatic notes have the definite advantage of offering the masculine world already familiar fragrances while creating and enhancing them with varied scents. Thus basil, king of gardens for decades, is featured in multiple masculine accords to lend the power of its anise-like scent to fougère, woody, citrus or even aquatic notes.
As early as the 1960s, with the very famous Eau Sauvage by Dior, basil finally offered an alternative to the venerable lavender of many previous fragrances by opening compositions with vigor before evolving toward chypre-woody notes and bolder yet still equally reassuring citrus notes. In 1964, two years earlier, gentlemen had already discovered basil paired with powerful fougère accords in what would become THE reference for aftershaves, Brut Original by Brut.

Then, with the rise of natural raw materials in perfumery in the 1990s, basil, like other magnificent aromatic plants, completely took over masculine fragrances, offering accords that were classic for some and much bolder for others.
In recent years, there has even been a search for ways to work aromatics with olfactory families that seem, at first glance, incompatible, in order to highlight a perfect duality meant to represent the man of today. Some perfumers, such as the house Jo Malone, no longer hesitate to combine basil accords with fruity and gourmand accords to create unprecedented and surprising fragrances... even for men!

Of course, basil is a particularly traditional masculine olfactory raw material. However, to ignore that aromatics can create feminine fragrances would be an insult to the talent of noses! Thus Ô de Lancôme, released three years after Eau Sauvage, offers a powerful green juice based on basil while remaining fresh and floral. A great success in perfumery, Ô de Lancôme won over both flower-loving women and the boldest women alike. Finally, years later, Acqua Allegoria Mandarine Basilic by Guerlain revisited citrus-aromatic accords, giving this fragrance a fresh and powerful duality that proved remarkably effective. Basil, it seems, has not finished captivating and enchanting men and women with its fragrant powers!