Story | Leslie Yip
When shopping for personal scents, more often than not you will see eau de toilette or eau de parfum on the bottle. Launching this fall, you will also find a new J’Adore fragrance from Dior called parfum d’eau.
Have you ever wondered what these terms mean? “Eau” is French for “water”, while “toilette” is a French term that refers to the process of self-grooming—from washing oneself to beauty rituals like dabbing on one’s favourite scent. Thus, eau de toilette is water of the toilette, a scented grooming water. Similarly, eau de parfum translates to perfumed water. The difference between the two is mainly that the latter contains a more concentrated amount of the fragranced oils, so it may smell richer and last longer.
That being said, water and fragrance oil comprise just a small part of most modern perfumes, sometimes as little as eight per cent. The rest is just alcohol. Why, you may ask? There are many reasons.
Dior J’Adore Parfum d’Eau, 100 ml | $TBD
Alcohol is often used to distil fragrance compounds from raw materials. It acts as a solvent to combine all the aromatic compounds in a formula. It evaporates very quickly once applied, dispersing the scent into the air while also letting the fragrance oils settle on the skin. You can usually find the percentage of alcohol contained in a perfume listed on the box. It will say “VOL”, as in volume of alcohol, followed by the percentage, usually between 70 and 90.
That brings us back to Dior’s new parfum d’eau. Directly translated, it is “perfume of water”, but do not confuse this with weakly scented floral waters. Thanks to an unprecedented natural process, the latest J’Adore contains no alcohol and yet the scent is still highly concentrated.
The new formulation utilizes a nano-emulsion technique to blend what is mainly water with a very high oil concentration. While the process is a patented innovative feat, the resulting fluid is as close to natural flowers as you can get, free from chemical solubilizers.
Housed in a frosted rendition of the signature teardrop glass bottle adorned with multiple golden coils, the milky liquid reflects the abundance of white flowers in its composition. Chinese magnolia, jasmine, rose and honeysuckle form the bouquet, with neroli as its centrepiece. The neroli is obtained via steam distillation, without any solvents, from hand-picked flowers of the bitter orange tree at a 100-year old farm in Provence.
The scent is instantly recognizable as pure J’Adore pedigree, but because alcohol is no longer at play, the traditional top-middle-base triptych disappears. The scent stays full and faithful from the moment of application, and is subtly long-lasting. It also makes the skin feel soft and smooth where you apply it.
I wonder if it is due to the lack of drying alcohol. Should I thank the delicate oils?
