Soliflore Quotes

“Tea Rose (Perfumer's Workshop) **** green rose $
Composed in 1972, Tea Rose was the first fragrance signed by the great Annie Buzantian (Pleasures), and was in many ways the first niche fragrance: the Perfumer's Workshop did nothing but fragrances, had a small range, was fairly hard to find, and had a devoted following. Tea Rose was and is a rose soliflore that illustrates how complex a composition must be before it can actually claim to smell of rose. The rose it depicts is huge, painted in watercolor, and has the species name written below it in cursive. LT”
― Luca Turin

“You're right about the scent. It's a soliflore."
"A vase?" she asked, confused.
"Yes," I said. "But in perfumery, there's another meaning— it's a scent that captures the perfumer's interpretation of a single flower. It does tell a story. All perfume does. I think you're right that this is meant to be sun-warmed lavender, rather than, say, lavender after rain, or lavender at dawn..."
Mama had said to once that essences were like soliflore scents, capturing a glimpse of a single life in the way a soliflore was meant to mark a moment in time. I wondered who had created this particular scent— had it been William Rosebourne himself or one of the perfumers he trained and employed?
"That is marvelous," Felicity said, propping her chin up on her hand with a dreamy sigh. "Imagine a scent of an iris given to a secret lover, or a carpet of bluebells in an ancient forest..."
I could, all of them. The notes were arranging themselves in my mind, layering in the way a painter added depth and light and texture with each new stroke.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Immortal Rose

“The crystal flacon was cold and empty, but it had a surprising weight to it. It had to be real gold on the vessel, caging the clear glass in a lavish pattern of vines and thorns. I stroked the edges of the rose crowning the stopper so lifelike in full bloom that I had to remind myself it would be impossible to dip flowers in molten gold.
That rose— that sweet rose. I brought the flacon closer, inhaling the scent, begging it to reveal its secret. It was honeyed, almost like a centifolia rose, and yet there was an indescribable effervescence to it.
In my mind’s eye, a primeval garden spread before me, the golden outline of a woman rising from the tangles of rosebushes unscathed, as delicate and beautiful as any of the blossoms around her. Not a woman, an ancient goddess— Venia, mother of the fairies, who saw to love, beauty, and healing.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Immortal Rose