... or praise for weeds
Riversides, slopes, ravines and wasteland. You see them everywhere. You can't smell them anywhere. No fragrance celebrates them. And yet they are fragrant, these plants that we call weeds because they are unwanted. Because they grow on their own, spontaneously, carefree, stubborn, uncontrollable. Spurned by humans, like outsiders and outcasts who vehemently defend their dignity with restraint or because they demand nothing from anyone ...
Mal-Aimé is Marc-Antoine Corticchiato's homage to those plants that have been banished from perfume bottles and posh neighbourhoods. Going against the grain of fine perfumery, which claims only the most noble materials for itself, the iconoclastic Mal-Aimé draws its inspiration from a plant that is as commonplace as its essence is rare. In fact, this is the first time it has been used in perfumery.
Inula, or narrow-leaved ragwort – also known to botanists as Inula graveolens – grows throughout Corsica in tousled bushes full of tiny yellow flowers. Its essential oil is distilled from plants harvested in the maquis, is certified organic and is a real treasure trove for a perfumer. Over the course of several hours, the emerald green essence unfolds wild, generous facets. Herbaceous? That's the least you can expect given its nature. But narrow-leaved ragwort also borrows the scent of roses and the sweetness of honey. Its fragrance is as sunny as the colour of its flowers, but also woody, salty and musky. Around this beautiful rebel, a procession of all the unloved takes place – thistles, nettles, blackberries and roots – which Marc-Antoine Corticchiato calls upon to celebrate his homeland of Corsica once again. Disruptive, avant-garde, never smelled before... Naturally noble. Undoubtedly iconoclastic. A perfume like no other.
A word from the perfumer: a tribute to a companion from the Macchie and the bush
"In French, weeds are called “mauvaises herbes”, bad herbs. I find that unfair, because they are abundant and have many health-promoting properties – such as inula or nettle, for example. I have never had the heart to pull up the wild inula that grows in my garden in the middle of the acchie."
Mal-Aimé is a tribute to a friend. The essence used by Marc-Antoine Corticchiato was distilled by Stéphane and Alexandre Acquarone, the sons of Lucien Acquarone, ‘my companion from the maquis and the bush, from Corsica to Vietnam via Madagascar and La Réunion,’ explains the perfumer. As an engineer specialising in botanical extraction equipment, ‘Lucien was a magician who could bring out the best in a plant's fragrance without altering its original scent, always staying as close to nature as possible.’ He was also an adventurer, ‘who could decide overnight to embark on a crazy project on the other side of the world.’ Along with his love of good food, wine and perfume plants, he shared with Marc Antoine Corticchiato a fondness for inula, "a plant with a very special scent, even though it is rejected by everyone. For many years, we talked about bringing the unusual scent of this “weed” to the world. But he left us too soon.‘ Mal-Aimé, a fragrance with essential oil of inula extracted by his sons, is ’a tribute to Lucien. Lucien, who must be laughing up there, with a glass in his hand and a twinkle in his eyes – eyes as green as the essence of inula and as sparkling as his favourite champagne."
