Broom

What it brings

A sunny, honeyed warmth that softens the base.

Origins and uses

The broom of perfumery is Spanish broom, Spartium junceum, a shrub of the legume family native to the Mediterranean basin. From May to August, its branches are covered with bright yellow, highly fragrant flowers. It was once a source of textile fibre, and its flowers feed bees.

These flowers yield, by extraction with volatile solvents followed by purification, a rare absolute. The manufacturer dsm-firmenich offers one from the "pays de Grasse" and describes it as evoking tobacco, hay and honey, warm, fruity, slightly bitter, floral and animalic. It suits, it says, floral, chypre and amber accords, and gives fragrances a rich, natural effect.

In our catalogue, broom appears in the base of Ta'if by Ormonde Jayne, with vanilla and amber, beneath a heart of rose, freesia, orange blossom and jasmine.