Our newest fragrance, Calm & Tranquil, is not your grandmother’s rose perfume. Like femininity itself, this rose has been updated for the modern era. In the case of our fragrance, that means adding hints of orange, jasmine and sparkling Italian bergamot, even a little violet, for a resulting scent that’s fresh and floral, earthy and watery. All to make a scent that embodies both Old World style and the 21st century, and channels classic French style filtered through an Indian lens.
How did we translate that into scent?
I had in mind a lot of pictures that resonated with me - myrtle, beautiful women, soft flowers. The effortless femininity. Something very bright and open.
I was looking for something that would mean maximum femininity, and something that is based on rose, which is the queen of all flowers. There is nothing more feminine than rose, and it comes in all colors and textures and forms.
Makes sense. So where did we go from there?
For this, I wanted to have a white rose because it’s more delicate and glamorous and graceful, there’s something very glamorous and straightforward about it. I didn’t want it to be too frou-frou—the message should be very clear and straightforward.
How did we go about getting that across?
I built a simple rose. Rose and violet work very well together, and are very classic, but there’s a way to modernize them.
I also mixed it with a facet of modern violet. Usually violets are a bit powdery, but I wanted to use the more watery bit of violet. It’s more cucumber-y for that freshness. Once I had that accord, and that core of the fragrance, I dressed it up.
Totally.
I do a lot of associations, which takes me to orange flower. Jasmine and orange flower. I put it in there to get a bit more depth and a darker femininity. And from there, I worked a bit with adding some contrasts. Things that are a bit more woody, so the contrast would make the top come out more. I added a leathery note, too.
Ah, so that’s what that is.
The first few versions smelled too clean, too tight. They were too put together. Then we as a team saw that this is put together, but maybe a bit more animalistic, more dirty, more human. Adding this leather note helps a lot.
Another thing I like to do is add something a bit more expected, so I added a crunchy peppery note, which works well with rose, but adds a more sparkling note and makes it a bit more bright. Pink peppercorn, which is a very expensive material, for me it added a quality to the fragrance. It works well with watery notes too.
It’s a very short formula. And I think that’s why I like it. There’s nothing extra that’s hiding something. It breathes. It has a lot of sillage, that cloud that you leave all around you. That for me is the power of the woman, her strength. It’s not strong in a way that it’s dense, but it’s bright and it’s all around you.
It’s sophisticated.
Yes. Absolutely.
There’s a family in fragrance called chypre, which means cypress in French. These fragrances were all based on patchouli and moss, and were for the sophisticated in the early 20th century. It’s a bit old-fashioned.
This doesn’t have that structure, but it has that feel and volume and sophistication. It’s almost like a shadow of a chypre. It’s a structure that’s very abstract. It creates a whole that speaks to sophistication.
Definitely. That soft blue, that soft Celadon. The woman who has that dress that looks like silk and has movement. I love that contrast of colors and you can see that in this scent.
How many iterations did it go through?
I want to say 30? Maybe a bit more. We had two that we really liked. And we had consumers letting us know what they thought and that was fun. Sometimes we’re looking at really small details and we’re moving it a little, little, little, little….
How would you describe it? What makes it special?
For me, she’s this beautiful sophisticated woman that’s very well put together, but is not pretentious at all. She’s bright, she’s open, she’s confident. But she’s also humble. She’s confident, so she’s not afraid of having a scent that others might think is too classic. It is a classic scent, but twisted in a modern way. It has a modern sensibility. She’s the woman of today.
