Mace

Nutmeg, mace and the nutmeg tree…

The nutmeg tree is a tropical tree native mainly to Indonesia and Malaysia. It produces fresh fruit from which both nutmeg and mace, a kind of “placenta” of the nutmeg, are extracted.

Mace, or the aril, must, like nutmeg, be dried for 6 weeks for the nut to develop its scent and maturity, and for the aril to transform into the lovely mace flower.

The mace is then distilled to create an essential oil with medicinal properties, as is often the case, but also and above all to create a note of mace with sweet, gentle and delicately spicy effluvia, which is used with pleasure in particularly masculine perfumes.

Delicately spicy fragrances with mace essential oil

The note of mace is first and foremost used particularly in woody and fougère fragrances. Sometimes a top note, sometimes a heart note, the mace note appears brilliantly in great compositions from the 1980s such as the fougère and citrus “Dunhill Edition” by Alfred Dunhill, or the woody citrus “Cacharel pour l'Homme” by Cacharel.

Then “Pasha” by Cartier, created in 1992, approaches the note of mace with new colors thanks to very balanced combinations of aromatic then spicy notes, closing on woody and animalic notes. Mace becomes essential to the new wave of spicy perfumes, which will lead it toward the new orientals such as “Body Kouros” by Yves Saint Laurent.

Until then, the note of mace belonged almost exclusively to masculine perfumery. Indeed, being used in fragrances with woody dominants, mace was the preserve of men. One still had to be familiar with the pretty and original fragrance of “Comme des garçons” which, despite what its name might suggest, is for girls, at last! Just like its oriental successor “Secret Obsession” by Calvin Klein, the fragrance is oriental and floral while being ample and spicy. At last, we too can enjoy the lovely “nutmeg flower”!