Ingredients · Herbs & lavender · top note

Lavender oil

Lavender sachets and fresh hay.

Perfumers note a camphoraceous edge: the cool bite of a chest rub.

What it is

Oil distilled from lavender’s flowering tops, in Bulgaria and France.

When you smell it

Top notes: the first minutes.

What perfumers do with it

Heart of the fougère family and barbershop classics; adds clean, calming herbal-floral freshness.

Worth knowing

Bulgaria has overtaken France as the major supplier of lavender oil, as disease and climate strain French fields.

Known in

Jicky (Guerlain, 1889); Pour un Homme (Caron, 1934)

Also called

True / fine lavender; Lavandula angustifolia; lavande

On the label of 23 of the 232 perfumes read so far

SauvageDior · printed “Lavandula oil/extract”ShalimarGuerlain · printed “Lavandula oil/extract”Eau SauvageDior · printed “Lavandula oil/extract”Bleu de ChanelChanel · printed “Lavandula oil/extract”LaytonParfums de Marly · printed “Lavandula oil/extract”Side EffectInitio · printed “Lavandula oil/extract”

See all 23

Named by the house, not on the label, in 14

LibreYSL · “lavender essence from France”JickyGuerlain · “Lavender”Fougère RoyaleHoubigant · “lavander”Wild RushInitio · “Lavender”Opus XIV Royal TobaccoAmouage · “Lavender”Reflection 45 ManAmouage · “Lavender”

See all 14