Lavender is a difficult fragrance ingredient. This beautiful scent is so fleeting it can hardly be used for anything but a top note. You will rarely find a lavender perfume that truly earns the label Eau de Parfum. The difficulties of lavender must be even more challenging for perfumers who follow the path of natural perfumery since no chemical fixing agents are allowed there.
So, I had my doubts when the perfumer Xavier Torre recommended me his fragrance “Lorani” at this years' Global Art of Perfumery in Düsseldorf. He assured me that it was sustaining – but I had to find out for myself how this was done.
As one of the many perfumes I was shown at this annual fair, Loriani made it to my skin. The lavender in it is overwhelming. There is lots of it, and it smells pure and natural. You get pictures of the blooming lavender fields of the Provence. However – Mr Torres picks his plants in Corsica within a nature reservation nearby his place, and he seems to produce the essences by himself. Even in natural perfumery, you will not find many people who work like this.
Putting lots of a very fleeting ingredient into a perfume does not transfer the top into a base note. There must be something else to it. Actually, very often, the lavender is accompanied by other herbal notes, such as clary sage or rosemary. In my opinion, this is done not to give it a contrast, but to pick up the scent of lavender and prolong the lavender vibe with the help of other herbal notes. In Loriani, we have thyme.
At the beginning, the lavender is dominating. It is harsh and strong, but slowly, you notice a slight change in it. That is where the thyme comes in, but you will actually think it is still lavender. In a way your olfactory sense is betrayed with this slow move. The thyme catches the lavender and moves the idea of it a very long way – a smart solution!
Next to lavender and thyme, there is the vanilla, labelled as base note. It did not appear to me as straightforward vanilla like i.e. in Carons Pour un Homme, rather as something undefinedly mellow. It kept a very attractive secret, and it only showed up discreetly behind the lavender and thyme. I wished there was more of it.
Loriani is not the Old English style of lavender water. Rather than a herbal refreshment, Loriani celebrates the opulence of the Mediterranean south: holiday in southern France. The amount of thyme is a bit too much for me, since I use thyme as a kitchen herb. But Loriani will surely attract lovers of the Mediterranean who want their perfume to be as natural as possible, and who are aware of the simple pleasures of live such as to smell a bunch of freshly cut thyme and lavender.
