This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
Alexandra Bachand, who is celebrating this year the 10th anniversary of La Grange du parfumeur, her haute perfumery house established in Magog, has launched a new eau de parfum with scents of glamour – Jasmine at dawn. That’s not all: the nose has also just published a magnificent work last March, Scent gardens. Aromatic projects and perfumery secrets, which gives pride of place to the flowers of its garden and offers aromatic recipes. Selected extracts from an open-hearted interview.
After first studying fine arts, Alexandra Bachand discovered a passion for perfumery. “Smells have always helped me paint,” she confides. For me, they are linked to colors. The day I understood the place that smell took in my creation, I wanted to fully integrate it and I began to sculpt this invisible material. Perfume became my medium,” she says.
This poetry of the invisible, as she describes it, followed her into her garden. It is there, surrounded by peonies, roses, carnations, lilies and many other plants, including aromatic herbs and fragrant shrubs, that Alexandra Bachand welcomes the public during the summer, by appointment only. An original, even atypical, open-air perfumery workshop. “Ultimately, we could discover the garden with our eyes closed,” she explains. Me, my garden, it doesn’t look at itself, it feels. »
An inspiring haven
From the old restored barn where she has set up her workshop, Alexandra Bachand has a view of the lake… and her garden. If she does not cultivate the raw materials which are used to make her perfumes there – several of the flowers which she uses in her concoctions would not survive well in our latitudes, she recalls – she still draws from them a good dose of inventiveness. “My garden is more of a place for ideas to emerge. I am very inspired by white flowers: I have a crush on mock orange groves and lilies. »
In fact, her latest creation, which she spent years refining, is an ode to jasmine, the queen of white flowers. “When I started in perfumery, I thought my first fragrance would be jasmine, but I saw that it required patience. She’s a difficult queen to honor. ” Result ? A gentle bouquet with a green and romantic facet that stands out from the sensual notes traditionally associated with jasmine. “Mine is more in the morning than in the evening,” she compares.
Want to smell Jasmin at dawn and the other creations by Alexandra Bachand? This will be possible during the months of July and August, the only time of year when she opens a door to her world. In an enchanting setting, the Perfume Festival gives the opportunity to discover its collection in an unusual way, outside, surrounded by the ephemeral trails of the garden. “It’s a moment when we allow ourselves to fully experience beauty through smell, far from the usual codes of perfumery,” she explains. Art above all! »
Perfume festival at the Jardin de Senteurs, from July 3 to August 17, 2024, 1245, chemin des Pères, Magog, reservations: alexandrabach.com
Flower ice cube recipe
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.