In 2024, Lancôme entrusted a green reading of its floral to Shyamala Maisondieu, Nadège Le Garlantezec and Adriana Medina. Shincha green tea and bergamot hold the top, Damask rose and rosewater the heart, vanilla, cedar, patchouli and musk the base.
Idôle Eau de Toilette rests on a green tea, a rose in two states and a woody foundation. The top is zesty and herbaceous, the heart floral and honeyed, the base dry, powdery and vanillic.
Green tea at the top
Shincha green tea opens the fragrance on an odor of crushed leaf and clear infusion. Shincha is the first Japanese harvest, reputed to be softer and more vegetal than later harvests, and it is this character that the accord seeks.
Its facet is herbaceous and slightly milky, close to matcha. It is this that tints the fragrance green, and that sets this eau de toilette apart from the rest of the Idôle line.
Italian bergamot
Bergamot is a citrus fruit from Calabria whose peel carries a zesty, fresh and slightly floral odor. Lancôme blends three oils of it, one of which is obtained by cold molecular distillation, a process that preserves the volatile molecules.
This raw material reads from the top all the way into the heart. It crosses green tea on the ground of vegetal freshness and rose on that of the floral facets of the peel.
The rose heart
Damask rose is a warm, honeyed and slightly spicy rose, drawn by distillation of the petals. It constitutes the heart of the fragrance and the signature that the Idôle line has carried since its first juice.
Rosewater accompanies it in a paler, more watery mode, that of the hydrolat. Both raw materials come from the same flower, taken in two states: one fleshy and concentrated, the other transparent.
The woody, vanillic base
Madagascar Bourbon vanilla is a creamy, sugary pod, here worked as an infusion. Cedar answers it with a dry, chalky wood, while patchouli lays down an earthy, camphoraceous facet.
Musk lays down at the base a powdery, clean odor, the kind that holds the flower without sweetening it. This woody foundation is the one the Idôle collection has carried since 2019.