Angélique Noire by Guerlain: The Shock of Vanilla and Green
Angélique Noire is a perfume from the L’Art et la Matière range sold at the Maison Guerlain. Angelica seeds and roots are raw materials that yield vivid, fresh, and green, even almost bitter notes.
Childhood Memories and Creative Genesis
For me, the angelica root propels me back into my childhood. I never really appreciated the Sunday cream cakes that my mother systematically bought for every family celebration.
But what I adored were those green sticks running across the cakes, looking like big grasshoppers. These sticks were young green angelica stems, with a very distinct taste, coated in sugar. In the same style, there is rhubarb.
The desire behind the creation of this vanilla perfume was to dress up vanilla in a new way, to find, in a sense, an unusual companion, to find its opposite, to create a contrast.
It was a note by Daniella Andrier, a perfumer at Givaudan, that caught my attention. We had worked on this perfume together for another project that did not go through. But I kept it in mind and when the L’Art et la Matière project was decided, I resumed work with Daniella.
The Olfactory Pyramid of Angélique Noire
It is a fragrance that combines a very fresh green opening, almost raw, supported by pink pepper and a pear note.
- In the heart, we find Sambac jasmine and caraway.
- Then in the base, vanilla, angelica root, and cedar.
It is the troubling encounter of a novel vegetal note with a bewitching vanilla.
Angelica Archangelica: The Herb of Angels
Family: Apiaceae
Angelica, native to Europe and Siberia, was formerly used to ward off spells. It loves damp and marshy regions. It is an umbellifer that blooms from June to August. The seeds are harvested in mid-July and its roots in winter. This angelica is also used in vermouth, gin, custards, and jams.
Angelica essence has a very present, spicy, almost musky smell, at once acrid and bitter. It contains about 200 constituents (including alpha-pinene).
