Tonka Imperiale

How can one imagine a perfume without its Guerlinade? How can one imagine a Guerlain perfume without a note of tonka bean? Thierry Wasser plunges into the roots of this precious seed with Tonka Impériale, surprising and so magnificent…

Between retro effects and gourmand warmth, Tonka Impériale sublimates the raw material

Tonka bean has for many decades been one of the favorite ingredients of the Guerlain house. From the famous Jicky, born in 1889 from Aimé Guerlain, through the oriental Shalimar by Jacques Guerlain to Habit Rouge by Jean-Paul Guerlain, or the famous Petite Robe Noire by Thierry Wasser, tonka bean inhabits the creations of every generation of Guerlain perfumers. It was therefore altogether natural that Thierry Wasser chose to pay tribute to it in one of the most beautiful bottles of the L'Art et la Matière collection: Tonka Impériale.

Tonka Impériale is certainly one of the perfumes from L'Art et la Matière that was most applauded upon its release, so well did it succeed in translating into a complex fragrance the historical use of tonka bean. Thus Tonka Impériale does not stop at offering the gourmand, toasted scents of the precious bean, it goes further. Much further…

Tonka Impériale, or Guerlain's tonka bean unveiled in all its most beautiful guises

By giving this tonka bean a fresh and powerful twist of rosemary, Thierry Wasser offers, in a single stroke, a transposition of this almond-like and wildly gourmand ingredient into an unexpected masculine universe. Tonka Impériale plays with the boundaries between masculine perfumery and feminine perfumery by daring to portray a tonka bean in an unfamiliar light.

Its fragrance is perceived as both masculine, through its aromatic and woody facet, and feminine, through the roundness of the tonka bean and the balsamic notes. Like Jicky, Tonka Impériale is contrasted, ambivalent. Sylvaine Delacourte on Tonka Impériale by Guerlain.

Thus Tonka Impériale opens with rather surprising top notes of bergamot and rosemary blended with an almond note. An opening intended as a lovely mix of contrasts between a typically feminine note, almond, and a typically masculine aromatic fougère accord. In the heart, Thierry Wasser again plays with contrasts between a jasmine flower of absolute femininity and a marriage of tonka bean and honeyed, smoky, very masculine tobacco.

The depths of this Tonka Impériale do not belie the gender ambiguity of this beautiful perfume, exhaling powerful woody sensuality that sublimates the tonka bean in notes as feminine as they are masculine, of cedarwood, pine wood and incense.