Dioressence

Three essences in the current version

The house places an essence of Egyptian geranium at the top, which it describes as complex and slightly rosy. Ceylon cinnamon holds the heart and lends the warm, spicy accent that places the perfume among the orientals. Indonesian patchouli forms the base.

A balsamic base

Benzoin and vanilla, absent from the house's listing, complete this patchouli base. These two balsamic materials place the current eau de toilette within the spicy oriental family, to which both the house and independent classifications assign it.

The earlier pyramids

The pyramids published for earlier versions were far more elaborate. At the top, aldehydes, bergamot and orange. The heart brought together jasmine, rose, carnation, iris and ylang-ylang around geranium and cinnamon. The base combined patchouli with oakmoss, benzoin, musk and ambergris.

The accord of the original

One review devoted to the older versions describes an accord of carnation and patchouli heightened with cinnamon, lit up by abundant jasmine, over a chypre, animalic base. It is this accord, joined to ambergris, that gave the first Dioressence its character.

What is left out

These materials describe formulas that have since been replaced. They are not counted among the notes of the eau de toilette sold today, which retains geranium, cinnamon, patchouli, benzoin and vanilla.

What the label declares

The list the house publishes for the Dioriginals version has fifty-two entries, one of the two longest in the collection, with Jules. Patchouli oil heads it, ahead of amyl salicylate, hexyl cinnamal and acetyl cedrene, a woody note.

It names geranium oil, ylang-ylang, bergamot, sandalwood, clove, oakmoss, neroli and lavender. Cinnamyl alcohol, cinnamal and anise alcohol recall the spicy axis; two UV filters and two colorants, blue and yellow, close the list.