Honeyed Notes in Perfumery: The Bee, Emblem and Inspiration

The Bee: Guerlain’s Alchemist

The bee: emblem of Guerlain, is the great alchemist of nature; it crosses the destiny of the House of Guerlain, the undeniable alchemist of beauty.

It can be adorned by skilled hands with gold leaf into a myriad of bees, exactly 69, which seem to correspond to the 69 provinces that existed at the time in France (it is then called “golden bee” or without gold called “white bee”), like so many seals of the imperial emblem, regardless of the size of the bottle: this would be the first custom perfume for Empress Eugénie.

At Guerlain, the vocabulary of flowers, fruits, gardens, and even bee products is immense: Senteurs des Champs, Le Jardin de mon Curé, Esprit de Fleurs, Double Extrait de Mille Fleurs, Bouquet de l’Impératrice, Bouquet du Comte d’Orsay, Pâte d’Amande au Miel, Crème à la Fraise pour le Teint, Rose du Moulin, Guerlilas, Guerlarose, Poudre aux Fleurs, Jasmiralda, etc.

The Hymn to Nature: Aqua Allegoria

For nearly 160 years now, this little bee has been foraging in our House, from creation to creation. The Aqua Allegoria range, created in 1999, is designed as a true hymn to nature; the fragrances were directly inspired by this concept of the bee, namely: drawing from nature, with respect, what is most beautiful about it, in order to magnify it.

Every year, in spring, Guerlain creates a garden of scents, between allegory and joy (allégresse), and thus celebrates nature, a place of emotions where one forages. Since its creation, our catalog has seen more than 25 creations flutter by; 3 have really settled: Mandarine Basilic, Herba Fresca, and Pamplelune. The bottle is embellished with the symbol of the honeycomb, and a bee has delicately landed on the cap.

The bee and honey have, of course, inspired the new cosmetic line: Abeille Royale. With its main ingredient being honey as well as its floral but quite honeyed scent.

Olfactory Description: Roundness and Sunshine

Honey and honeyed notes are quite present in Guerlain fragrances: Rose Barbare, Mon Précieux Nectar, L’Abeille, Flora Nymphea in the Aqua Allegoria (discontinued), Chant d’Arômes, Après l’Ondée, and L’Heure Bleue.

The honey note is interesting because it brings roundness; for some, it can be regressive, it is nurturing, sunny, fluffy, brings a lot of tenacity and naturalness. It has multiple facets: herbal, hay, tobacco, gourmand, fruity, leather, etc.

I enjoyed working with it in L’Instant pour Femme, with the idea of a citrus honey. The idea of this perfume was to illuminate a “Guerlinade” with honeyed mandarin, jasmine, magnolia, solar notes, and in the base, benzoin and sandalwood.

The Ingredients: Natural and Synthetic

Perfumers can add honeyed notes to perfumes using, for example, beeswax absolute, which has a smell of honeyed wax, herbaceous, tobacco and hay, aniseed, spicy, fruity, animalic, leather; it all depends on the combinations and the honeyed ingredients.

Technical list of honeyed notes and descriptions

• Honey from Robertet
• Beeswax Absolute: quite butyric, very honey, broom.
• White Honey: Symrise.
• Broom Absolute Calabria: wax note, cassie, butyric, quite dark, yeast note.
• Turkish Tobacco Absolute: honey, animalic, leather.
• White Honey (De Laire base): honeyed smell, polish/wax.
• Hay Absolute: LMR/IFF.
• Miel de Provence (Firmenich base): tobacco, aniseed, honeyed, curry, immortelle, coumarin, hay.
• Phenylacetic Acid: honeyed, fruity, dirty, a bit blackcurrant.
• Phenylacetic Aldehyde: very vegetal, wet, cold, rosy, honeyed.
• Phenyl acetate and phenylethyl phenyl acetate.
• Cinnamic Alcohol from Symrise.
• Nectarol: quite a particular note, a bit “mothball”.
• Isobutyl Phenylacetate: pear, hedione, rosy.
• Hydratropic Aldehyde: not very powerful, reminiscent of a cereal bar, apricot-like.
• Acetophenone: white glue note, a bit medicinal.

Flowers with honeyed facets

Certain flowers like honeysuckle or mock orange, cassie, mimosa, broom, immortelle, privet, and pittosporum also have honeyed facets.

Perfumes with Honey Notes

Honey adds a warm, sweet, and animalic touch to floral, oriental, or chypre accords, such as in:

• Gentleman by Givenchy
• Poison by Dior
• Rose Barbare by Guerlain
• Féminité du Bois by Serge Lutens
• Rose Ikebana by Hermès
• Rahat Loukoum by Serge Lutens
• Ambre Narguilé by Hermès
• Fumerie Turque by Serge Lutens
• Miel de Bois by Serge Lutens
• Gucci by Gucci