Our third fine fragrance, Botanical Essence No.100, is ideally suited to the warmer months with its fresh, uplifting floral aromas. It’s a truly captivating, evocative and beautifully wearable summer scent – and a perfect celebration of 100 years of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Imagine a gorgeous hand-tied bouquet containing some of the most exquisite floral scents. As you turn it in your hands, different delicious smells jump out at you. One spritz of Botanical Essence No.100 is exactly like that. You’ll enjoy light, fresh, green top notes which come from mandarin, clove leaf, freesia and bergamot. These give way to reveal the heart of the fragrance – a trilogy of rose, orange flower and Indian jasmine – entwined with ylang ylang, my favourite rose-scented geranium and gardenia. All of this is then beautifully balanced with vetiver, cypress, sandalwood and Bourbon vanilla at the base, which gives the fragrance a sublime sensuality that lingers on the skin.
Alienor Massenet, the award-winning perfumer behind our spicy, seductive Botanical Essence No.15, has chosen and blended these specific notes to capture the essence of entering a British florist's shop or walking around an English summer garden in full bloom and then bottle it for our delight. With over 90% naturally derived ingredients, this is no mean feat – floral fragrances are notoriously difficult to create using such a high level of naturals – but she has quite brilliantly succeeded in the challenge.
Romantic heart
Among the key 12 botanicals in this fragrance is a unique rose ingredient, used here for the very first time. Damask rose petals from Isparta in Turkey have been steam distilled to produce oil and rosewater. The rosewater is then redistilled a further three times to concentrate its delicate scent and blended with the petal oil to give us an extract with an exceptionally soft, honeyed note. Rose lies at the heart of all three of our fine fragrances and is part of our heritage – rose-scented geranium was the very first aroma I wanted to introduce into our skincare range when we developed Instant Boost Skin Tonic all those years ago.
Chelsea dreams
I've long been a fan of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and to be an exhibitor has been a lifelong ambition, so it really is a dream come true to have a pop-up shop and perfumery garden on Main Avenue there this summer. Every year, I am bowled over by the craftsmanship and dedication on display, the incredible expertise behind every garden, often years in the making. The variety on show is breathtaking, from wild flowers to tropical plants – aromatic and visual treats from all corners of the globe in just a few acres of grounds at the Royal Hospital.
Ageless appeal
Alienor's knowledge and craftsmanship is just as evident in No.100. Where traditional florals can be quite sweet and even a little cloying, she has taken the utmost care to ensure that our fragrance has a light, modern freshness to it, for example choosing oil from the clove leaf rather than clove buds for its greener scent. The result is a timeless classic with universal appeal – both my mother and eldest daughter love it just as much as I do. I hope you love our fresh floral too.
Best wishes
