Rose De Mai

I received my set of Collection Privée samples today and randomly started with this one. (BTW Collection Privée isn’t on the Galimard website yet, but if you contact them they will confirm that 7 fragrances are available to order from this line.) One sniff of Rose de Mai and I’m immediately sent back in time by several years. I remember receiving a small bouquet of garden flowers from my best friend whose parents loved France and roses. In that bouquet was one big and heavy rose which must have had a thousand petals. I had never seen or smelled anything like it. I was about 10 years old. I’m not a poet, therefore I struggle to find the right words for this fragrance / perfume / scent / redolence (you see, that’s what I mean). I could of course elaborate on me and my friend taking turns sticking our noses into the rose on that day, but surely nobody here wants to read about that. In 1766 T. Smollett described his first encounter with this special flower as follows: “... and plats of roses blowing in full glory, with such a beauty, vigour and perfume, as no flower in England ever exhibited.” Rose de Mai is wonderful. Nothing more to add.