Rose Barbare

For the beautiful L’Art et la Matière collection, the Guerlain rose transforms once again and becomes mysterious and burning, the better to bewitch us with its magical, ancestral powers.

When the rose turns sharp under the talent of Francis Kurkdjian for Rose Barbare

According to Sylvaine Delacourte, who worked for a long time on the composition of wonderful fragrances at Guerlain, the two main essences used by the venerable house would be Damask rose and May rose. However, Thierry Wasser wished to personally oversee, for the needs of the new communal Guerlain fragrances, blends of the finest rose varieties in order to create rose “vintages” exclusively linked to the house of Guerlain. Rose is therefore more than ever tied to the history of Guerlain and to its qualitative, highly selective values.

By choosing to work with rose in a completely unprecedented way for Rose Barbare, Francis Kurkdjian, a distinguished guest for this new installment of L’Art et la Matière, offers us a Guerlain rose as wild as it is deliciously burning. A “barbarous” rose far removed from the floral-fruity sweetness of Idylle, yet ultimately very close to the lovely Nahéma, composed in 1979 by Jean-Paul Guerlain.

For Rose Barbare, the Guerlain rose is clothed in mystery and voluptuousness, turning by turns honeyed and piercing. But never syrupy! So many faces take shape around this Rose Barbare that it suits men for its power as much as women for its floral voluptuousness. A rose that dresses the skin according to our desires, or its own!

A beautiful and rebellious Rose Barbare, a proud ottoman, which also offers the fresh and spontaneous sensuality of a honeyed chypre base. The untamable one, in sensual finery, strikes straight to the heart. Guerlain, on Rose Barbare.

Rose Barbare, or Guerlain’s dark, stylized patchouli rose

Francis Kurkdjian, well accustomed to powerful and original scents, managed to give the venerable house of Guerlain an almost venomous rose that shifts according to accords between sweetness and strength, honeyed ambers and woody power.

Rose Barbare opens first on top notes of the most fruity and sweet of roses, the Bulgarian rose. A floral sweetness that is nonetheless reinforced by the power of aldehydes, turning into… barbarous strength. At the heart, fenugreek, a spice rare in perfumery with a taste and scent reminiscent of celery, punctuates with its anise-like freshness a Turkish rose that becomes a wild flower, a rebellious flower. A peach honey rising from the depths pours over this wild heart a gourmand, oriental note that whets the appetite, only to be swept away into notes of undergrowth and patchouli. The mystery and depth of this Rose Barbare never cease to hold us in their grip.