For a simple hybrid of sweet lemon and bitter orange, the humble citrus called bergamot reaches far. About a third of all masculine perfumes and about half of all feminine perfumes contain bergamot as a note.
The vast majority of bergamot is grown in Calabria, in the south of Italy, where it’s grown not for its juice but for its oil, the flavor and scent of which turns black tea into Earl Grey. Bergamot oil is also a major component in Johann Maria Farina’s Eau de Cologne, the first blockbuster perfume.
Bergamot is a key note of one of the most popular and lucrative accords in perfumery: the chypre (pronounced “sheep”).
Chypre completes the trilogy of classic accords, together with amber and fougère. The basic chypre accord consists of bergamot (head/top note), oakmoss (heart/middle note), and labdanum (base note).
The chypre accord often also contains patchouli, vetiver, and/or sandalwood. Note that chypre and fougère share oakmoss as a heart note, and chypre and amber share labdanum as a base note.
The word Chypre is French for Cyprus, the Mediterranean island. It’s named after the first fragrance that made it commercially successful in the modern era: the great François Coty’s Chypre, 1917. Yes, two of the classic accords in perfume are named after abstract concepts (the other being fougère).
You’ll probably never smell Chypre — it has been out of production for decades — but you might smell the monumental perfume that some say owes most of its success to it: Guerlain’s Mitsouko, 1919, the Citizen Kane of perfumery.
