Concentration rises to 30% in the reformulation by Karine Vinchon-Spehner, where the frankincense absolute is FairWild certified and extracted with dimethyl carbonate in place of hexane
Miller Harris has taken Scherzo, its 2018 bestseller, back to the lab and turned it into an extrait de parfum. Two decisions sit upstream of the formula: a resin cut from wild trees under a standard that governs how often each tree can be tapped, and a solvent that replaces hexane.
Scherzo Extrait de Parfum, concentration at 30%
In an extrait the share of fragrant concentrate dissolved in alcohol rises from the levels typical of an eau de parfum to 30%. The structure changes with it: heavy raw materials — resins, woods, mosses — hold larger proportions while the top stays legible, and the sillage lengthens, up to 12 hours on skin.
The reformulation is by the perfumer Karine Vinchon-Spehner. The original composition, released in 2018, was by the perfumer Mathieu Nardin, who worked from one brief, a passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night: the scene in which the actress Rosemary Hoyt walks among flowers in full summer light.
FairWild frankincense, the Boswellia resin and the Somali collectors
The frankincense absolute in the composition is certified FairWild. The resin comes from trees that grow wild: the bark of Boswellia in the arid zones of the Horn of Africa, the Arabian peninsula and India is incised, and the exudate is collected. Commercial pressure over recent years has pushed collectors to tap the same trees too often, which compromises their capacity to regenerate and reproduce.
The FairWild Foundation was set up in 2008; version 2.0 of the standard, from 2010, incorporates ISSC-MAP, the protocol on the sustainable collection of medicinal and aromatic plants developed by TRAFFIC, WWF, IUCN and the German federal agency for nature conservation. Certification verifies the assessment of the resource before harvesting, the management plans, the harvesting practices, traceability along the chain, and the contractual and economic conditions of the collectors, who across much of the frankincense chain are rural Somali communities.
Dimethyl carbonate, the solvent that replaces hexane
The absolute is extracted with DMC, dimethyl carbonate. An absolute is obtained by working the raw material with a solvent that captures its odorous compounds, and the industry reference was for a long time hexane, petroleum-derived, with a toxicological and environmental profile that pushed research toward alternatives.
Dimethyl carbonate sits among the low-impact solvents: low toxicity, biodegradability, a synthesis that can avoid the more problematic reagents. The substitution registers on the nose, because a different solvent extracts different fractions of the material, and the result has to be brought back into balance in the formula. The choice is made before the composition begins.
Davana, rose-nectar and oakmoss, the raw materials of Scherzo
The opening works on mandarin and davana. Davana is Artemisia pallens, a herb native to southern India, sweet and fruity with a tea-like edge; its essential oil shifts nuance according to the skin it settles on, which makes it difficult to handle in the top notes.
The heart sets peony and white pittosporum beside a denser rose, with honey and vanilla warming it. The rose-nectar accord, liqueur-like and powdery, works the fleshy part of the flower; the incense runs through the heart and gives it verticality.
The base rests on oud, patchouli and oakmoss, with amber woods and a sweet note of caramel and candy floss. Oakmoss, Evernia prunastri, is the most regulated material on the list: its presence in contemporary formulas is bound by thresholds set for skin sensitisation, and it is worked in extracts purified of the allergenic molecules.
Scherzo Extrait de Parfum notes, floral woody amber
Floral, woody, amber. Top notes: mandarin, davana. Heart notes: rose-nectar accord, peony, incense, pittosporum. Base notes: patchouli, vanilla, oud, oakmoss, amber woods, a sweet note.
Miller Harris was founded in London in 2000 by the maître parfumeur Lyn Harris. In Italy it is distributed by Olfattorio Bar à Parfums, which opened in Turin in 1981 out of the meeting between its founders, Giovanni Gaidano and Renata de Rossi, and the perfumer Jean Laporte, among the originators of niche perfumery.
