Vegetable Notes in Perfumery: From Carrot to Artichoke

Fruity notes have always been popular, but a new trend is emerging. We see more and more notes expressing nature, the countryside, and especially in natural perfumes, even 100% natural ones. And this very fashionable naturalness is expressed today through new actors: vegetables.

Carrot Seed: A Woody and Powdery Essence

Carrot belongs to the umbellifer family, just like fennel, angelica, and parsley. Since the root yields no extract, it is the seeds that are distilled. Very surprising in the perfumer’s palette, carrot, or more exactly carrot seed, is an essence obtained by steam distillation.

This carrot seed note is woody. It possesses a fresh and green opening on a powdery and spicy, slightly earthy base. It wonderfully accompanies other powdery notes, violet, mimosa, and it is also close to the scent of the iris rhizome.

As iris root is very expensive, this carrot seed, fifty times cheaper than the precious iris rhizome, can help sublime its delicious powdery notes.

In base notes, carrot essence becomes more caressing, with accents of dried apricots. Associated with blackcurrant buds, carrot seed can give an illusion of a mango smell.

Production and Quality

Seed production in France is about 1,000 tons per year. It is the second-choice quality that will be chosen to yield carrot essence. There is an Indian quality that is not as qualitative as the French one.

It undergoes quality variations due to sorting by seed companies after the selection of fertile seeds. On the other hand, the fairly unstable essential oil has other issues, which makes this raw material difficult to source.

Perfumes Containing Carrot Seed

A precursor, the great perfumer Edmond Roudnitska had used a high percentage of carrot seed essence in Rose de Rochas in 1949. Carrot seed is also in the following perfumes:

• Un Jardin sur le Nil by Hermès
• Aquaman by Rochas
• Dior Homme by Christian Dior
• Santal de Mysore by Serge Lutens
• Iris Silver Mist by Serge Lutens
• Santal Blush by Tom Ford
• Volutes by Diptyque
• Fleur de Carottes by L’Artisan Parfumeur
• Hiris by Hermès
• La Pluie by Miller Harris
• I Love Carottes by Honoré des Prés

Tomato Leaf: A Green and Crisp Accord

Everyone remembers the first claims of tomato leaves in a perfume. It brings a vegetable to mind, whereas the tomato is actually a fruit.

In perfumery, tomato leaves are a composition by the perfumer, an accord that approaches leaf scents but is built around a green, lively, crisp, and fresh note. Tomato leaf was announced in L’Eau de Campagne by Sisley in 1976 for the first time.

It would later be present in Passion by Annick Goutal in 1983, in Les Belles by Nina Ricci in 1996, Splash Basil by Marc Jacobs in 2008, in Ninféo Mio by Diptyque in 2010, Corsica Furiosa by Parfum d’Empire in 2014. It reminds me a bit of the blackcurrant bud leaf claimed in L’Ombre dans l’Eau by Diptyque and in their candle Baies.

Natural green notes, lentisk, violet leaf, angelica, or synthetic ones like cis-3-hexenol and triplal, associated with blackcurrant bud, can give this natural effect of tomato leaf or blackcurrant leaf.

Surprising New Vegetables (Symrise Innovation)

The perfume and raw materials creation company Symrise recently surprised us by launching new vegetable notes. A daring alternative to enrich the perfumer’s organ.

Symrise has developed, in association with Diana Food, acquired by Symrise, a rather complex new upcycling technology, SymTrap™, which has made it possible to offer bold natural ingredients through vegetable waste.

These 5 new vegetables are accords created by perfumers:

• Artichoke (Articoeur): became royal when it became the passion of Louis XIV. It reveals itself as soft, velvety, creamy.
• Asparagus (Lilystem): with its hazelnut taste, appreciated by all gastronomes from antiquity to the present day. It offers salty and hazelnut-cereal facets at the same time.
• Leek (Atlantide): native to the Middle East, emblem of Wales. Used to ward off evil spirits. It alone combines nuances of iodine and mushroom.
• Cauliflower (Hot Chouchou): is slightly animalic. Spicy and powdery, it allows it to be used in perfumery for new animal facets, 100% vegan.
• Onion (Wool Peel): is a bit sweet. It brings sulfurous, zesty, tropical notes.

Conclusion

These apparently very interesting notes, technically speaking, will certainly enrich the perfumer’s organ and offer them even more creativity in the future. However, a few questions can be asked:

• Will these novel compositions generate a revolution in perfumery as was the case with the discoveries of synthetic materials at the beginning of the 20th century?
• Are we witnessing a turning point in perfumery towards a so-called greener perfumery?
• Will these notes be accepted as selling points to consumers?