Absolutely Magazine: July Issue: Return to the Summer of Love

This column appears in the July issues of Absolutely Magazine.

The sun may shine but it will probably rain, you may fall in love but you will probably fall in mud, whatever happens you can be sure of one thing this festival season – the unmistakable notes of patchouli will be present.

Now synonymous with any outdoor music event, patchouli was first appropriated by the hippie counter-culturalists of the 1960’s. It was the scent of The Summer of Love associated with spiritual and sexual enlightenment and radical free-thinking.

Patchouli is the redolent symbol of a social revolution; when the sun set on existing social mores and the world awoke to the dawn of a new consciousness; an age advocating the pursuit of pleasure and the power of people. An era in which prejudice had no place, wars would be ended and peace would be given a chance. Sadly this edifying liberal thinking often left little time for liberal showering and in the minds of many patchouli was destined to be indelibly linked with other less attractive aromas. Patchouli as a perfume ingredient has provoked many an upturned nose. 

Whether you love it or hate it, the history of patchouli and perfumery are so intricately, and literally, intertwined you will never be able to escape it. Patchouli leaves were used by Chinese merchants in the 18th century to protect their precious cargos of exotic silks from damage by moths along the Silk Road trade route to Europe via India. The fragrance of patchouli leaves, on fabrics affordable to only the European elite, became recognised as the scent of success. Put simply, if you were powerful and Parisian you smelled of patchouli.

Later the fragrance was added to scarves and shawls manufactured in France as a marketing ploy to increase sales of domestically produced products. Thus patchouli became a staple ingredient in perfumery and, because of its unique chemical structure enjoying the property of a natural fixative, has remained one ever since.

With its characteristic combination of woody notes and brighter green accords it has become an indispensible element of a whole genre of ‘chypre’ fragrances. Patchouli-prominent fragrances may still be an acquired taste but do not be put off by its inclusion, you will find patchouli hovering around the base or middle of some of the world’s most successful scents and today it is undergoing a revolution of its own; patchouli is once again causing quite a stir.

May 2014’s Fragrance Foundation winner, Byredo, has devised a sublime way to wear scents this summer in the form of the company’s brand new roll-on perfume oils, which last longer in heat and are super portable. Byredo’s Oud Immortel has a rich, woody patchouli heart with sunshine top notes of limoncello, wrapped in a gauze of mysterious incense. 

Eleganza Luminosa - Elegant Light - from Linari, is patchouli at its best; buoyed with brilliant, bright bergamot and bolstered with a bouquet of freesia, rose, jasmine and iris. Quite lovely. 

1969 from Histoires de Parfums uniquely blends dark notes of coffee, chocolate and patchouli with a smear of sweet fruit. One can imagine being outside a Paris café in that very year; you sip on an early morning coffee, bite on a croissant with confiture de pêches, and watch the cobbled streets slowly stir. A gaggle of giggling revellers crash pass your table on their way home, a trail of patchouli left clinging to the chill air in their wake.

Psychédélique from Jovoy also recalls patchouli’s more recent past with its heady and intoxicating psychedelic swirl of orange, lemon, lime, rose, amber and inky patchouli. Beautifully presented in a handmade pull out box and heavy, chunky bottle this is the hippie idealist made good; the principles are the same but the jeans cost a bit more!