Floraïku
Sand and Skin
The Story
Every Floraïku scent is named for a haiku, and Sand and Skin is the sun-warmed one, built on Madagascan vanilla absolute and benzoin with a fraction of ylang-ylang. The composition is deliberately short, in keeping with the form it is named after.
Woody
Dry grain of cut timber
The smell of cedar shavings, sandalwood, and dry vetiver roots, a sanded, resinous warmth with a faint pencil-box rasp. It feels grounded and composed, the quiet backbone that makes a scent read as serious and lasting.
Vanilla
Cured pod, boozy under the cream
Cured pods, not frosting. The sweetness here is custardy and balsamic, with something dark and boozy under it, closer to rum and woodsmoke than to sugar. It warms everything above it, blunting sharp edges and slowing the whole thing down.
Amber
Resin warmed until it goes sweet
Labdanum, benzoin and vanilla melted together into something sweet but dusky, like tree sap gone soft in the sun with a thread of incense smoke through it. Amber does not sparkle or shout. It sits close to the skin and gives off heat for hours.
Powdery
Soft hush of dressed skin
A velvety, slightly dry softness of iris root, violet, and fine talc, like face powder or clean linen warmed by skin. It feels intimate, refined, and nostalgic, blurring a fragrance into a gentle, cushioned haze.
Yellow Floral
Sunlit mimosa, ylang and champaca
Mimosa, ylang-ylang, champaca, broom: the flowers that smell yellow. Honeyed and faintly buttery, with an indolic hum under the sweetness and none of a white floral's coolness. A garden at noon, pushed to the edge of overripe.
Balsamic
Tree sap gone thick and golden
Tree resins and golden amber, thickened to syrup and touched with vanilla. It does not sparkle or move; it settles, warming the skin the way candlelight warms a room, and it stays there long after the top notes have gone quiet.
Lysylang
A ylang fraction, turned solar and creamy
What it is
Distil ylang-ylang and it comes off in grades: Extra first, then First, Second and Third, each smelling different from the last. Lysylang is a fraction of ylang-ylang oil from Robertet, separated out and kept for its own character.
How it smells
Softer and sweeter than raw ylang, without its banana-medicinal spike. What you get instead is sunlit: frangipani and jasmine over a creamy coconut and monoi warmth, with a thin lily-like spice running through it.
In perfumery
In the heart it does ylang's job without ylang's volume. It rounds white florals, sits easily with tuberose, coconut and soft musks, and supplies the warm beach-flower glow behind a lot of modern solar fragrances.
Good to know
Robertet did not invent a molecule here. They went back into the ylang oil and found a material in it, which is a quieter kind of ingenuity than synthesis.
Mahonial
A clean creamy muguet captured in one molecule
What it is
The name comes from Mahonia japonica, though the smell is lily of the valley, not the shrub. Givaudan built this aldehyde in the laboratory as a stable stand-in for Lyral, the muguet material now banned for sensitising skin.
How it smells
Bright and see-through: lily of the valley with cream in its body, a green watery edge, a little magnolia underneath. It travels further than it sweetens. Radiant rather than heady.
In perfumery
A heart material, dosed for radiance: it opens out a bouquet and freshens green and aquatic accords without adding weight. Rose, jasmine and musks are its usual company, and it turns up in muguet-driven work across the board.
Good to know
The flower itself yields no distilled oil, so muguet in perfumery is almost always rebuilt from molecules like this one. Givaudan has since made another, Nympheal, and the two compete inside the same house.
Ylang Ylang
Sun-warmed tropical bloom, banana-cream and jasmine
What it is
A drooping yellow star of a flower, hand-picked from a tropical tree and held in the still for fifteen to twenty hours. The run is drawn off in stages, each one a different grade, Extra down to Third.
How it smells
Creamy and heady, jasmine over something like banana custard, with rubber and clove threaded through. Extra grade is the bright, fruity, spicy one; the later fractions go deeper, fatter and faintly medicinal, drying down waxy and round.
In perfumery
In the heart it bridges jasmine, rose and tuberose, and it keeps citrus tops from turning thin. It carries the floral bouquet inside the aldehydic classics, and it is the reason a solar tiare accord smells tropical.
Good to know
In Indonesia the blossoms are scattered over the beds of newlyweds. The name is Tagalog, ilang-ilang, from ilang, wilderness, after the wild places where the tree grows. The most fragrant blooms are taken at dawn, while they are still cool.
Sandalwood
Creamy wood, pulled up by the roots
What it is
The richest oil sits in the roots, so the whole tree is pulled up and steam-distilled rather than felled. Mysore in southern India was the classic source, until decades of overcutting pushed the wild trees to the edge.
How it smells
Milk and warm wood, with a rosy, almost buttery edge and nothing sharp at all. What surprises people is how little it moves: no bright opening, no dry-down drama, just the same quiet glow for hours.
In perfumery
It works twice over: as a smell, and as a fixative that holds rose or jasmine in place. Sandalwood is also graded, and the darkest, densest, most resin-heavy old heartwood carries its own name: red meat.
Good to know
A heart worth taking takes about thirty years to form. Plantations of the same species in Western Australia now supply a large share of the world's oil, close to the old Mysore chemistry if not quite its creaminess.
Amyris
Caribbean wood that whispers like soft sandalwood
What it is
The branches are so loaded with oil that people once lit them as torches, which is where candlewood and torchwood come from. Fallen, aged wood is distilled slowly into a soft heartwood oil sold as West Indian sandalwood.
How it smells
Dry, soft and low-volume: clean cedar-like woodiness with a faint balsamic warmth and a peppery wisp of smoke. Next to true sandalwood it is thinner and much less creamy, a little oily, happy to sit underneath everything else.
In perfumery
Base-note plumbing: an affordable fixative that holds lighter materials down and stretches the woods. It goes with citrus, lavender, cedar and sandalwood, and props up more colognes and soliflores than ever list it.
Good to know
West Indian sandalwood is a sales name, nothing more. The tree is a Caribbean relative of citrus and shares almost no chemistry with Santalum, which costs many times more, and the two smell alike only from a distance.
Patchouli
Damp earth and dark wood after rain
What it is
Nobody guesses mint, but that is the family: a leafy bush whose leaves are dried and left to cure, close to fermenting, before distillation pulls out an oil thick and dark as syrup.
How it smells
Wet soil, forest floor, an old cellar, with a winey sweetness underneath. Young oil can come at you sharp and green, almost camphorous. Aged oil goes the other way, into chocolate and leather, and stays put for hours.
In perfumery
Almost nothing holds a composition down like it. Chypres and orientals are built on that anchor, and a few drops under rose, vetiver or labdanum will hold the whole thing on skin for hours.
Good to know
Nineteenth-century Kashmiri shawls travelled packed in dried patchouli leaves to keep moths off, and Europeans learned to tell a real one by smell alone. The oil improves with age, which almost no essential oil does, mellowing like wine.
Cedarwood
Dry pencil shavings and sun-warmed timber
What it is
The cedar in your closet or cedar chest is usually a juniper. Virginia and Texas cedar both are; among the cedars of perfumery, only Atlas and Himalayan are true Cedrus. The oil is steam-distilled from heartwood chips and sawmill dust.
How it smells
Freshly sharpened pencils, and the inside of a cedar chest. Virginia leans pencil-dry and balsamic; Atlas is sweeter, almost honeyed. Both carry a clean, faintly camphor-cool smoke that settles into sappy warmth.
In perfumery
A heart-to-base workhorse: dry structure other materials can lean on. It sits well with vetiver, rose, citrus and incense, and it is the smoke in the drydown of countless modern woody-ambers.
Good to know
Cedar rarely appears alone. Its molecules, reworked in the lab, form the backbone of a great many contemporary woody fragrances, which is why so much of the modern woody shelf smells faintly of a sharpened pencil.
Madagascar Vanilla
Cured black pods breathing deep boozy sweetness
What it is
An orchid pod, blanched, sweated, sun-dried and then left to condition for months until it turns black and pliable. Madagascar's northeast coast supplies more of it than anywhere else on earth, extracted as absolute or tincture.
How it smells
Custard and dried fruit over a rum-like depth, with smoke, wood and a faint tobacco curl that synthetic vanillin never has. Rich and balsamic at first, then a soft powdery sweetness that turns almost leathery.
In perfumery
Base note, fixative, and the reason a gourmand holds all day. It settles alongside amber, tonka, sandalwood and spice, and the natural material carries a depth that smoky orientals and vanilla soliflores are built on.
Good to know
Outside Mexico the orchid has no bee that will pollinate it, so every flower is fertilized by hand within hours of opening. The trick was worked out in 1841 by Edmond Albius, an enslaved twelve-year-old on Reunion.
Benzoin
Warm vanilla balsam wept from a tapped tree
What it is
Benzoin does not flow on its own. Someone cuts the bark of a styrax tree in Laos, Vietnam or Sumatra, and the wound weeps a gum that hardens over months into reddish tears.
How it smells
Sweet, warm, unmistakably vanillic, with a powdery amber softness underneath. Siam benzoin is rounder and creamier; Sumatra runs smokier, with a cinnamon bite. Left on skin it turns almost caramelized.
In perfumery
A base note that behaves like a fixative and a sweetener at once, giving amber accords their glow and holding the rest of the composition still. It softens sharp edges beside labdanum, tonka and incense.
Good to know
The word benzene comes from here. Chemists named benzoic acid after this resin, and benzene took its name from the acid. The resin's own name is a worn-down Arabic phrase, luban jawi, frankincense of Java.
Labdanum
Sticky amber resin scraped from sun-baked rockrose
What it is
A Mediterranean rockrose sweats gum through its leaves in summer, dark and sticky enough to glue your fingers together. Harvesters boil or scrape the branches to get it off, then extract that crude gum into absolute and resinoid.
How it smells
Balsamic warmth, then leather, dried fruit, honey and a curl of smoke. There is something almost ambergris-like in the opening. Hours later it has settled into brown tobacco and worn skin, still going.
In perfumery
Take labdanum out and most amber accords collapse; it is what vanilla and benzoin get built on. It fixes a formula in place, gives chypres and leathers their depth, and sits well with rose, oakmoss and incense.
Good to know
Before there was distillation, there were goats. Herds browsed through cistus scrub all summer, the gum matted into their beards and thighs, and shepherds combed it out. Labdanum is one of the oldest aromatic materials still in use.
Fragrance Character
Lysylang and mahonial open with a waxy, almost lactonic softness, the ylang never shrill but rounded immediately by amyris and cedarwood into pale wood. The heart settles into sandalwood and patchouli moving in the same direction, earthy without darkness. On the drydown, Madagascar vanilla and benzoin pull everything inward, the labdanum lending a faint resinous grip that keeps the fragrance close to the skin for hours.
Longevity
how long it stays on skin
The hourglass reads wear time: how many hours the fragrance keeps speaking before it fades. A bar that barely leaves the start means a few fleeting hours. One that runs the full length carries from morning into evening. Treat it as typical, not promised. Oily skin holds scent far longer than dry.
Sillage
the size of its scent trail
Sillage is French for a ship's wake, and that is exactly what this measures: how much of the scent reaches the room instead of staying on you. Low is a whisper only close friends catch. Enormous fills the room, then keeps filling it after you leave.
Experimental
Built to provoke, not to please
Some perfumes are made to be liked. These are made to be argued about: inky tar, hot rubber, fruit on the turn, metal and fur where you expected flowers. The coin glows for a scent that provokes and dims for one that plays it safe, which is sometimes the point.
Office
Polished, and never louder than the room
Scent is manners in a shared room. At this range it should reach the person across the desk and stop there: tidy citrus, soft musk, pale woods, all of it reading competent and considerate. A glowing coin means nobody has to mention it. A dim one means it travels.
Evening
After dark, when it deepens
Dinner, drinks, the night that runs long. Low light is where ambers, resins and smoky woods stop being polite, and where a plush floral finally blooms. A glowing coin means it is waiting for exactly this hour. A dim one means it did its best work in daylight.
Romantic
Close enough to be felt
A fragrance can hum against skin instead of announcing itself across a table. That is the register here: creamy florals, vanilla, soft musk, a thread of spice, warm enough to make someone lean in. The coin glows when a scent sets that mood and dims when it is more practical than seductive.
Formal
Quiet authority in a dressed-up room
A wedding, a ceremony, a room where everyone has thought about their shoes. What works here is structure, not volume: smooth woods, disciplined florals, soft leather. A glowing coin means it holds its posture all evening. A dim one means it is too casual for the room.
Casual
Easy comfort for unhurried days
Errands, coffee, a slow Saturday with nowhere to be. Nothing here has to impress anyone, so the fit is soft and easy: fresh citrus, light woods, a little warmth off the skin. A glowing coin says yes to all that. A dim one means the fragrance is asking for a bigger night.
Day to Night
where its mood naturally falls
A bar running from sun to moon, reading the hour the fragrance was made for. The more of it that stays gold, the more the scent belongs to daylight and open air. The further the blue reaches back toward the sun, the deeper and warmer it turns: evening, candlelight, low rooms.
Winter
Warmth that carries through cold air
Cold air mutes a fragrance and slows it down, which is why winter belongs to the dense and the warm: resin, smoke, vanilla, leather, ambered spice. The bar reads how well this one pushes back, glowing against the chill instead of thinning out in it.
Spring
Fresh blooms in mild, rising warmth
Mild, humid air lifts a light composition, so the season belongs to dewy florals, green stems, soft powder and citrus you can see through. Alive rather than heavy. The further the green runs along the bar, the more comfortably this one wears in that weather.
Summer
Bright and airy in real heat
Heat does the projecting for you, which is why the wrong perfume turns unbearable by noon. What survives is cool and breathable: sharp citrus, salt air, aromatic herbs, water. Things that refresh instead of cloy. A short bar here means save it for cooler months.
Fall
Spiced warmth for cooling days
As the air cools, the rich materials stop smothering and start reading clearly: dry woods, warm spice, tobacco, amber, fruit gone golden. It is the season perfume turns contemplative. The bar fills according to how naturally this one settles into crisp, cooling days.
Best Worn
An easy, unhurried fragrance for warm days that carry from desk to evening, equally at home worn close on a quiet night in, its pale woods and creamy sandalwood speaking softly in the still summer air.
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The Vibe
The Nose
Nadège Le Garlantezec
Perfumer
Nadège Le Garlantezec is a Givaudan perfumer and ISIPCA graduate who won the International Young Perfumer-Creator Award in 2006. She worked on Lancôme Idôle with Adriana Medina and Shyamala Maisondieu, and on L'Occitane Terre de Lumière with Shyamala Maisondieu and Calice Becker.
The Maison
A haiku in a bottle, French perfumery read through a Japanese lens.
Floraïku builds quiet, precise compositions around tea, rice, ink and wood, and gives each one a line of poetry instead of a marketing story. The scents sit close and unfold slowly, which is exactly the kind of behaviour a blotter cannot show you.
- Origin
- Paris, France
- Founded
- 2017
- Known for
- Tea and rice accords, poetry inspired names
EVERY DECANT
From the original bottle to your door
We buy the original flacon at full retail price, direct from the house.
A medical grade Socorex syringe takes the exact millilitres straight from the flacon.
Packed into the hot foiled box and handed to DHL, every duty already paid. How a decant is made
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