L'Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier: fragrance review & history

Composed by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti exactly 20 years ago in 1994, Premier Figuier still remains one of the very best out there, conjuring a vivid image of late August days spent in the Greek countryside when cicadas are loudly singing at the scorching hour of noon and people hot and weary from a sea dip are sitting beneath the shade of the fig tree to enjoy their Spartan meal of fresh fruit and cool, still water. The coconut curls note is rounding the foliage with just the right sweetness and provides an euphoric touch.

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Giacobetti in an unstoppable strain of fig-producing mode, went on to create an Eau de Parfum version to the best-selling Premier Figuier, baptized Premier Figuier Extreme (2004), highlighting the rounder elements and extending its stay. She also created Philosykos for Diptyque, two years after her seminal "first fig tree" for L'Artisan. Philosykos, the friend of figs.

The re-creation of the smell of fig trees in perfumery is possible thanks to two crucial ingredients: stemone and octalactone gamma. Stemone (Givaudan tradename) imparts a green, fresh tonality like mint that combined with octalactone gamma (prune-like) evokes the earthy, sticky green of fig leaves (a smell of dry earth, scorched by the sun of a hot place with a hint of bitterness) and the milky sap of the young fruit plus the acid green of galbanum. The always handy Hedione (a fresh jasmine note, Firmenich tradename) and Iso-E Super (a dynamic and shape-shifting woody synthetic, IFF tradename) are often utilized to bring “lift” to the genre. The coconut note is an important part, not because it imparts a tropical feel (figs grow in the temperate zone) but because the young fruit sap contains a sensitizing "milk," a lactonic note. Coconut is also lactonic, i.e. milky in nature, hence the inclusion more realistically brings to mind the fig tree burdened with its succulent-to-be load. The milky note isn't a random thing, nor has it escaped attention through the ages. The classical Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis writes in Deipnosophistae how rural populations were making cheese out of milk by curdling it using the twigs and leaves of the fig tree. It is even described in Homer's Iliad!

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It's not decided whether Giacobetti was intimate with this bit of classical knowledge when she added a milky, butyric note into the green woody skeleton. All I know is that in Premier Figuier it was crucial that the tempering of bitterness (naturally occurring in the fig leaf itself, smelled best when crushed between the fingers) with the sweetish milky note is done just right! The effect is not too dissimilar to an apricot (another lactonic note in fragrance) run under fresh water and opened in two halves in a cool yard. While wearing Premier Figuier I am often reminded of this little fact as I receive compliments on the "apricot scent" on me… :-)

Springtime awakenings: Green Fragrances & Green Shades in Perfumery

Among fragrance families, only "green" scents are classified through a visual connotation, specifically a color coding. You could argue that color plays an important role in the perception of fragrance anyway: "noir" or black connotes a sense of nocturnal danger, of priceless and unusual objects or of mighty seduction; spicy orientals are routinely being encased in reddish or brown boxes to evoke the materials associated with their make-up and the exotic East artifacts and textiles they are inspired of; marine scents come in blue bottles to recall the "big blue" of the sea they try to reference etc. And you would be right.

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But green is a category all its own because the smell so categorically corresponds to the color for once that there is just no other way to "view" them: snapped leaves, mown grass, young stems retaining the dew, young buds striving to grow, pine needles all fresh and tingling in the forest air ... there's something about green scents that makes even the most die-hard urbanite of us yearn for the call of nature, of open spaces and of the freedom of an existence lived in a timeless way, in unison with earth. Today when the Green Movement is rampant, they seem particularly "now."

Green scents can be said to be unisex, though many women consider them more masculine or casual. But shed a thought for supermodel "The Body" Elle McPherson, a legend in the late 1980s and early 1990s and still a force to be reckoned with: her signature scent has always, famously been Guerlain's masculine Vetiver. Think of Sycomore by Chanel too: the concept was to offer a classically masculine targeted scent (a vetiver) to women who were busy buying off Les Exclusifs range. Or consider that super-sexy Christina Hendricks (of Mad Men fame) is a fan of the smooth green of Premier Figuier by L'Artisan Parfumeur!  Vetiver is technically a woody scent, coming from an exotic grass, yet because green packaging was first used for the first "stand alone" Vetiver (that of Carven in 1957) and all the others copied the color scheme, the association of vetiver with "green" has stuck!

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Green fragrances are not necessarily always "earth mother" types, "Om" chanters, dressed in hand-knitted woolies. They can be refreshing, upbeat, cheeky even! Etiquette Bleue by Parfums d'Orsay is a lively, citrusy scent which is underscored by greenery to render a playful and classic herbaceous ambience. O de Lancome is as fresh as tomorrow, its geometric packaging (in the words of Susan Irvine "reminiscent of 1960s wallpaper") denoting a modern sensibility; the basil, petitgrain, rosemary, witch hazel and vetiver notes give a decidedly green character to the hesperidic and floral notes that would speak of a simple cologne. Green fragrances can lean a bit more sophisticated too, borrowing facets from the fougere and chypre classification: Koto by Shiseido, Eau Parfumee au The Vert by Bvlgari, Diorella, Givenchy III, Safari by Ralph Lauren, Jacomo Silences, Niki de Saint Phalle and Eau Sauvage by Dior are all class acts in their own way and they all have perceptible "green" elements.

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So beloved were these green scents once upon a time that the inclusion of a "herbal green" aroma in a functional product (namely the original "Herbal Essences" shampoo) has nostalgizers scouring Ebay for remaining bottles fetching stratospheric prices, even if only for opening the cap and getting a good sniff!

Green shades can technically veer into two main directions: fresh or resinous; leaves, floral notes with green elements such as lily of the valley/muguet and herbs are classified in the former (and accounting for green florals), with some citrus peel materials (bergamot notably) and grasses (such as galbanum) classified in the later, accounting for green chypre perfumes and green citrus fragrances.

Certain raw materials naturally tilt the scales into greenery indeed: galbanum, the driving force behind the classic green Vent Vert by Balmain (1945, its very name meaning "green breeze"), but also an indispensable addition to Chanel No.19, a green floral; pine needles (is there any other way to think of classic Italian Pino Silvestre but as intensely green?); cut grass, lemon leaves, petitgrain and eau de brouts (a by-product of the distillation of the Citrus aurantium tree), violet leaves (as opposed to violet flowers), mint leaves, spearmint, angelica, wormwood, lily of the valley (a green floral note indispensable to perfumers), even absinthe notes, all lend that touch of emerald that makes a composition at once majestically glow and refresh. Bring on the springtime greens!

Perfumery Material: Galbanum, Bitter Green Claws

Galbanum is a material that has such an intense personality that like a memorable villain in a film it ends up casting its shadow so long that it might easily overwhelm everything else. If the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz had a scent, could it be this green raw leafy smell to match her greenish pallor?

The common fallacy about galbanum in perfume compositions derives from the fact that it is routinely mentioned as a top note; in fact galbanum is a sticky resin of plant origin, much like labdanum from rockrose, and forms part of the more tenacious ingredients in the formula in the heart and base. But it is its intense bitterness with green tonalities, like a super-concentrated coniferous elixir at some crazy alchemist's lab, which comes through, all the way from the bottom up front and is immediately tingling the nose with a clearing capacity that only ammonia salts can surpass.

The shock is to be expected. Take someone unaccustomed to perfumes and let them sniff the initial spray of Chanel No.19; high chances are they won't sit around for the drydown, such is the displeasure at the acrid, intense crack of the whip to the untrained nose. It's no coincidence that the plant it derives from owes its own etymology to the Latin ferule which refers to a schoolmaster's rough rod. A bitch slap it is and it imparts that cool, hard as nails quality to the perfumes it participates in. However it is also prized for its fixative qualities: like many of the heavier molecules with lower volatility, it aids to anchor down the more ephemeral ingredients and as it expands in a room you can feel the air sweetening and becoming comforting with balsam and wood nuances.

Galbanum oil is derived via steam distillation from the resinoid that comes from the trunks and roots of the Ferula galbaniflua plant, which historically grew in ancient Mesopotamia and later Persia. The flowering heads resemble those of angelica or fennel, with which it shares the force of character. The resin is naturally produced when the plant is wounded, in nature's coping mechanism to heal. Even within the same plant there are variations: the Levant and the Persian, with the latter being softer and more turpentine-evoking.

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Smelling the thick, softly crumbling, yellowish paste and the clear oil produced off it is a revelation: acrid, stupendously green, a tornado of turpentine and earthy, peaty, almost chewy aroma which becomes muskier, more thickly resinous as time goes on. It is mercurial! In dilution in alcohol the "bouquet" opens up and one is reminded of crushed pine needles or pea pods with lemony overtones, very fresh, vegetal and sharp, like snapping the fresh leaves between forefinger and thumb.

The chemical constituents of galbanum are monoterpenes (α and β pinene), sabinene, limonene, undecatriene and pyrazines. The pure oil is, however, often adulterated with pine oil which may be why some batches and imports smell more of green, snapped pine needles than others. The fact that galbanum is so powerful translates as two significant considerations for perfumers: lightness and context. Naturally "greenish" smelling essences/reconstruction of the floral persuasion, such as lily of the valley and hyacinth or narcissus, pair exceedingly well with galbanum.

In Vent Vert (translating as "green wind") by Balmain, introduced in 1945, galbanum gained a starring role and introduced in earnest the mode for "green" fragrances; perfumer maverick Germaine Cellier, instead of using it to compliment other notes, made it the protagonist, giving it full reign and ushering thus a new wave of more "natural-smelling" fragrances. "Green" fragrances, you see, evoke the outdoors and nature much more than the sophisticated intimacy and animal-density of chypres. Nevertheless galbanum is also clearly present in many chypres and fougeres as well (the classic Ma Griffe by Carven, Parfum de Peau, the classic Lauder Private Collection, the vintage extrait of Miss Dior, vintage Cabochard, Bandit with its knife brandishing swagger, Givenchy III, the modern Private Collection Jasmine White Moss by Lauder) and woody florals (the above mentioned No.19, Fidji by Laroche, Deneuve by Catherine Deneuve, Patou 1000, Le Temps d'une Fête by De Nicolai, Bas de Soie by Lutens, Silences by Jacomo,  Untitled Marti Margiela), even florientals! (Just mentioning in passing Boucheron Femme, Comme des Garçons by Comme des Garçons, Givenchy Ysatis, Moschino by Moschino, and vintage Magie Noire). It'd be impossible to list them all!

              

collage via sandrascloset

 Chanel used to use a superior grade of Iranian galbanum which helped form the top note of Cristalle and of No.19. In the modern, more youth-oriented version of No.19 Poudre the bite of galbanum has been mollified in order not to scare the horses.

Finally Vol de Nuit (Guerlain) and Must de Cartier (vintage) both owe a lot to the accent of galbanum: the introduction of the green note in a classically oriental, soft focus composition is akin to daggers thrown on a supple and vulnerable female form at some olfactory circus; unmissable.

Ref: LAWRENCE, B.M; "Progress in Essential Oils" 'Perfumer and Flavorist' August/September 1978 vol 3, No 4 p 54 McANDREW, B.A; MICHALKIEWICZ, D.M; "Analysis of Galbanum Oils". Dev Food Sci. Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Publications 1988 v 18 pp 573 – 585