Beeswax

“Nothing is more like a soul than a bee. It goes from flower to flower as a soul goes from star to star, and brings back honey as a soul brings back light.”
 - Victor Hugo, Ninety-three.

Beeswax is one of the natural raw materials used in perfumery. The essential oil of honey does not exist, but perfumers are able to orchestrate the honeyed notes of beeswax with many other facets or olfactory families.

History of honey 

Beeswax is secreted by honey bees, they use this material to build the combs of their hive and store honey and pollen. The term honey comes from the Latin word nel. The product that has always existed and has a strong symbolic value. It was considered to be the nectar of the gods and was used in religious rituals and embalming. In some cultures, honey is considered an elixir of long life, many medicinal and cosmetic properties are attributed to it. 

Description of beeswax in perfumery 

Beeswax evokes a taste of honey and has a mouth-watering note that brings a sensation of softness and roundness, this is the result of the incredible work of the bees. 

The honey note is very interesting in perfumes and can even be regressive for some people (it evokes childhood). It is a nourishing, sunny, mellow note that brings a lot of tenacity and naturalness to a perfume. Moreover, the honey note has multiple facets, with scents of grass, hay, tobacco, as well as gourmand, fruity or leathery facets. It goes particularly well with orange blossom, which already contains a honeyed facet in its absolute.

Beeswax absolute has an encaustic, slightly honeyed, herbaceous, waxy smell with hints of tobacco and hay, aniseed, spicy, fruity, and leather accents, depending on the other natural scents that will surround it. 

The beeswax note is quite difficult to work with. Indeed, it can have a tendency to be too animal-like, or to remind one of an encaustic product: it must therefore be handled sparingly. It has the advantage of giving a lot of naturalness to a floral fragrance.

Some perfumers prefer to create bases containing several honeyed raw materials, rather than using beeswax alone in a composition.

This raw material is rather used in heart and base notes. However, if the honeyed facet is important, it can permeate the entire fragrance, from take-off to conclusion. 

Note: beeswax is not a vegan product.

The honeyed notes in perfumery 

Honeyed notes, such as beeswax, can be natural or synthetic. 

Natural honeyed notes 

In perfumery, natural honey notes can be found in the following products:

• Absolute beeswax: its scent is rather butyric, very honeyed, close to broom (shrub with yellow flowers).
• Absolute hay from the company IFF.
• Notes of blond tobacco can also give a honeyed scent.
• Some flowers can give honey notes, such as broom absolute with its complex and rather dark note of wax and cassia.
• Honeysuckle or seringa, cassia, mimosa, immortal, privet and pittosporum are other flowers with honeyed facets.

Honeyed synthetic notes 

Here are the main bases, or synthetic honeyed notes used in perfumery:

• Robertet honey: base.
• White honey: base from Symrise.
• Absolute Turkish Tobacco: honeyd, animal, leather base.
• White Honey (Laire's base): honeyed, polish smell.
• Honey from Provence (Firmenich base): tobacco, aniseed, honeydew, curry, immortal, coumarin, hay.
• Phenyl acetic acid: honeyed, fruity, a little dirty, close to blackcurrant.
• Cinnamic alcohol.
• Aldheyde Phenyl acetic acid: very vegetal note, wet, cold, dewy, honeyed.
• Phenyl acetate and phenyl ethyl acetate.
• Nectarol: rather singular note.
• Phenyl acetate isobutyl: pear, hedione, rose.
• Hydratropic Aldehyde: not very powerful, reminiscent of a cereal bar, apricot.
• Acetophenone: white glue note, slightly medicinal.

Honeyd notes and olfactory families 

The honeyed notes have the particularity of being able to dress many fragrances and bring a warm, sweet and animal touch to all the following olfactory families of fragrances:

• Chypre: Gentleman by Givenchy; Rose Barbare and Chypre Fatal by Guerlain.
• Woody: Féminité du Bois by Serge Lutens; Rose Ikebana by Hermès.
• Oriental: Ambre Narguilé by Hermès; Rahat Loukoum, L'Innommable, Miel de Bois by Serge Lutens; Gucci by Gucci; Angel Muse by Mugler.
• Demi-oriental: L'Instant by Guerlain.
• Flowers: Néroli Intense by Nicolai; Chat Perché by Annick Goutal; Mélodie de l'Amour by Dusita; L'Envol by Cartier.
• Leathers: Cuir Venenum by Pierre Guillaume. 
• Vanilla: Vanori by Sylvaine Delacourte.
• Orange blossom: Osiris by Sylvaine Delacourte.

Honey note: a beneficial note

The products made by bees are very rich, varied, and have many health and dietary benefits (honey, royal jelly, propolis, for example). They are rich in calories, oxidants, carbohydrates and potassium, and have a prebiotic effect.

Honey is also widely used in cosmetics for its regenerating and healing powers. Finally, beeswax, as well as the many other honeyed notes, brings delicious, enveloping scents to a perfume.

Sylvaine Delacourte fragrances

Discover Sylvaine Delacourte's brand with her Orange Blossom, Musk and Vanilla Collections. You can try them thanks to the Discovery Boxes (5 Eaux de Parfum x 2 ml) and rediscover these raw materials as you have never smelled them before.