perfumes with mimosa: 4 posts

Mimosa is a winter flower that holds the promise of spring. One of my most vivid childhood memories is seeing Georgian florists in Kyiv set up their mimosa stands in the last weeks of February. My mother would buy a big bouquet whenever we passed by and bury her face in the yellow flowers. Mimosa is happiness. Mimosa is a ray of sunshine.

In Belgium, mimosa comes either from Italy or France, and when the florists receive it, just like the Georgian mimosa vendors of my youth, they also display it in the street. How can anyone resist a yellow splash of mimosa? Even more inviting than the color of this flower is its scent. It’s delicate yet surprisingly persistent, filling my entire apartment with its nuances of violets, almonds, and cucumber peels. The temptation is to look for a similar interpretation in a bottle of perfume.

One of the classical interpretations is found in Jo Malone’s Mimosa and Cardamom, where the light, creamy aroma of the mimosa flower blends with the cool freshness of cardamom, creating a bright, uplifting effect. Powdery floral notes frame the mimosa and meld into the soft musky base. While the mimosa impression is not the most natural, it’s nevertheless close.

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“I will bring you cassie, if you still enjoy its perfume,” wrote French novelist Prosper Mérimée in Lettres à une inconnue (Letters to an Unknown). The Unknown, was Mademoiselle Jenny Dacquin, the daughter of a notary of Boulogne, with whom Mérimée corresponded for over forty years. And what flower should his Carmen throw to Don José? Une fleur de cassie.

Cassie and mimosa are two closely related plants from the acacia family. The branches covered with masses of lemon yellow pompoms not only look beautiful, they also have a rich scent valued in perfumery. Native to Australia, mimosas were brought to France in the 18th century by the British explorer, Captain James Cook, and they have flourished in the mild winters of the Mediterranean coast. Every February the Massif de Tanneron in Provence turns golden yellow as the mimosas come into bloom, a Fauvist painting come alive.

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My new video is about one of my favorite flowers, mimosa. First, I will clarify what flower I am talking about, since the whole topic of mimosa can make a botanist despair. The mimosa used in perfumery is either Acacia decurrens var. dealbata (called simply mimosa in the perfumery trade) or Acacia farnesiana (called cassie). The former is the pompom like yellow mimosa that I am holding in the video, the latter has a less dramatic appearance but is equally fragrant. The essences don’t have similar scents, but they are used for similar floral-violet, green and powdery effects in perfumes. Most of the mimosa absolute comes from South India and France.

Mimosa or cassie, the fragrance is beautiful–radiant, bright, with an addictive honeyed almond facet. A green leafy and cucumber peel accent lends an interesting twist, which is why mimosa and cassie fit so well in violet, green, fruity and spicy compositions.

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The scene: Brussels, an early evening cast in grey light. A woman walking slowly down the street. Behind a window covered with condensation she sees It. If it were a French New Wave film, the woman would have met the love of her life with whom she’d spend the next hour and a half exchanging meaningful glances and an occasional quote from a postmodern philosopher. But being my life, this is an evening when I find mimosa.

No flowers make me lose myself the way these fluffy yellow pompoms do. I’m not the only one–a heavily pregnant friend once traveled from Brooklyn all the way to Manhattan just because she heard that one florist shop on the Upper West Side might have received a shipment of mimosas. When I walk home, my arms filled with the bouquets, even the darkening light seems to radiate the same lemon yellow color.

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