Nicolas de Barry - L`eau de George Sand
Born in 1804, George Sand marked the 19th century and European romanticism in an exceptional manner : a successful writer, she was the friend of many intellectuals of her time and the companion of Musset and Chopin. Her castle in Nohant became the meeting point where European romantic artists met and gathered.
She received visitors in Nohant with great elegance: cultivated her garden and in particular a perfumed garden that provided plants and flowers for her pot-pourris and home-made soaps for her visitors.
Her passion for flowers and perfumes can be seen in the numerous letters she wrote. In a letter to Musset who had returned to Paris leaving her behind in Venice, she wrote in an insistent manner for him to send her some patchouli from the perfumer Leblanc.
She gave many instructions to her perfumers, (in the 19th century, Paris had 500 perfumers-creators who had shops in the capital), correcting endlessly their creations. George Sand was particularly fascinated by patchouli, by its oriental animal notes (ambergris and musk) and by the freshness of bergamot and lemon, aromas from the South of Italy which were so characteristic of romanticism.
By virtue of this information, Nicolas de Barry was able to smell two bottles of G. Sand's perfume : of course the essences had altered with time but were sufficiently in tact to enable them to be identified : patchouli, ambergis, rose…
Woman of the romantic period par excellence, her first name already depicts the ambiguity of a free, independent and unconventional personality. Declaring her republican convictions, entirely dedicated to literature, George Sand surprised a bourgeois and conservative nineteenth century that shoved women aside...
Based on a traditional oriental fragrance,
a clever mix of amber, musk, oud wood, with a heavy presence of patchouli, the perfumer added a discrete floral note distilled by the oriental rose, giving the skin a feminine fragrance and an “Italian style” predominantly citrus top note around the bergamot and the Sicilian lemon for its spicy and erotic properties.
- Citron de Sicile & Bergamote
- Patchouli, Rose & Santal
- Ambre, Musc & Bois de Oud
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