La Mome
Women's Fragrance

La Mome: a Pierre Balmain perfume launched in 2007. A glorious women's perfume: strong, mysterious and exciting perfumes for women.

Aroma Notes: Freesia, Violet, Raspberry, Pink Pepper, Iris, Myrrh, Musk, Opopanax and  Amber

Violet

Viola is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae. It is the largest genus in the family, containing between 525 and 600 species. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, however some are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes. Some Viola species are perennial plants, some are annual plants, and a few are small shrubs.  A large number of species, varieties and cultivars are grown in gardens for their ornamental flowers and in women's perfume.

In horticulture the term "pansy" is normally used for those multi-colored, large-flowered cultivars which are raised annually or biennially from seed and used extensively in bedding. The terms "viola" and "violet" are normally reserved for small-flowered annuals or perennials, including the species. Viola odorata is used as a source for scents in La mome and the perfume industry. Violet is known to have a 'flirty' scent as its fragrance comes and goes.

Ionone is present in the flowers, which turn off the ability for humans to smell the fragrant compound for moments at a time.

Freesia

Freesia is one of 16 species of flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, native to the eastern side of southern Africa, from Kenya down to South Africa, most species being found in Cape Province. The plants commonly known as "freesias", with fragrant funnel-shaped flowers, are cultivated hybrids of a number of Freesia species. They are widely cultivated and readily increased from seed. Due to their specific and pleasing scent, they are often used in hand creams, shampoos, and La mome perfumes.

Pink-Pepper

A pink peppercorn is a dried berry of the shrub Schinus molle, commonly known as the Peruvian pepper tree. Although a peppercorn is the dried fruit of a plant from the genus Piper, pink peppercorns came to be called such because they resemble peppercorns, and because they, too, have a peppery flavor. Dried berries from the related species Schinus terebinthifolius (the Brazilian pepper), are sometimes also called pink peppercorns (baies roses de Bourbon). The dried berries of that shrub are employed as culinary spice.

In 1982, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States banned the import of Brazilian peppercorns from France into the US, asserting that people who eat the berries risk an array of acute symptoms, such as swollen eyelids and indigestion. In response, the Government of France maintained that the berries are safe to eat if grown in prescribed conditions. The United States later lifted the ban and are used in women cologne.

Raspberry And La Mome

Raspberry ketone is a natural phenolic compound that is the primary aroma compound of red raspberries. Since the natural abundance of raspberry ketone is very low, it is prepared industrially by a variety of methods from chemical intermediates. One of the ways this can be done is through a crossed aldol-catalytic hydrogenation. In acetone and sodium hydroxide, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde can form the α,β-unsaturated ketone. This then goes through catalytic hydrogenation to produce raspberry ketone.

Raspberry ketone is used in La mome cologne/perfumery, in cosmetics, and as a food additive to impart a fruity odor. It is one of the most expensive natural flavor components used in the food industry. The natural compound can cost as much as $20,000 per kg. Synthetic raspberry ketone is cheaper, with estimates ranging from a couple of dollars per pound to one fifth .

Myrrh

Myrrh is the aromatic resin of a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus Commiphora, which is an essential oil termed an oleoresin. Myrrh resin is a natural gum. It has been used throughout history as a perfume, incense and medicine. It can also be ingested by mixing it with wine. When a tree wound penetrates through the bark and into the sapwood, the tree bleeds a resin.

Myrrh gum, like frankincense, is such a resin. When people harvest myrrh, they wound the trees repeatedly to bleed them of the gum. Myrrh gum is waxy, and coagulates quickly. After the harvest, the gum becomes hard and glossy. The gum is yellowish, and may be either clear or opaque and is used in Balmain La mome perfume.

It darkens deeply as it ages, and white streaks emerge. Modern myrrh has long been commented on as coming from a different source to that held in high regard by the ancients, having been superior in some way. Pedanius Dioscorides described the myrrh of the first century AD as most likely to refer to a "species of mimosa", describing it "like the Egyptian thorn". His description of its appearance and leaf structure as "pinnate-winged".

The ancient type of myrrh conjectured was noted for possessing a far more delightful odor than the modern. It was noted in 1837 that "The time, perhaps, is not far distant, when, through the spirit of research, the true myrrh-tree will be found".

Iris

Iris is a genus of 260–300 species of flowering plants with showy flowers. It takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow, referring to the wide variety of flower colors found among the many species. As well as being the scientific name, iris is also very widely used as a common name for all Iris species, though some plants called thus belong to other closely related genera. A common name for some species is 'flags', while the plants of the subgenus Scorpiris are widely known as 'junos', particularly in horticulture.

It is a popular garden flower. Rhizomes of the German Iris and Sweet Iris are traded as orris root and are used in perfume and medicine, though more common in ancient times than today. Today Iris essential oil (absolute) from flowers are sometimes used in aromatherapy as sedative medicines. The dried rhizomes are also given whole to babies to help in teething. Gin brands such as Bombay Sapphire and Magellan Gin use orris root and sometimes iris flowers for flavor and color. For orris root production, iris rhizomes are harvested, dried, and aged for up to 5 years. In this time, the fats and oils inside the roots undergo degradation and oxidation, which produces many fragrant compounds that are valuable in La mome fragrance/perfumery.

The scent is said to be similar to violets. The aged rhizomes are steam-distilled which produces a thick oily compound, known in the perfume industry as "iris butter" or Orris Oil.

Amber

Amber is fossilized tree resin (not sap), which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects. Amber is used as an ingredient in La mome cologne/perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry.  "Amber" perfumes may be created using combinations of labdanum, benzoin resin, copal (itself a type of tree resin used in incense manufacture), vanilla, Dammara resin and/or synthetic materials.

Labdanum is produced today mainly for the perfume industry. The raw resin is usually extracted by boiling the leaves and twigs. An absolute is also obtained by solvent extraction.  An essential oil is produced by steam distillation. The raw gum is a black (sometimes dark brown), fragrant mass containing up to 20% or more of water. It is plastic but not pourable, and becomes brittle with age.

The absolute is dark amber-green and very thick at room temperature. The fragrance is more refined than the raw resin. The odor is very rich, complex and tenacious. Labdanum is much valued in perfumery because of its resemblance to ambergris, which has been banned from use in many countries because its precursor originates from the sperm whale, which is an endangered species: although the best-quality ambergris is found free-floating or washed up onshore (long exposure to sunlight, air and water removes offensive-smelling components of the fresh substance), and thus raises no ethical objections, a lower-quality version can also be recovered from some fraction of freshly slaughtered whales, and so may encourage poaching of sperm whales.

Labdanum is the main ingredient used when making the scent of amber in La mome fragrance/perfumery. Labdanum's odor is variously described as amber, animalic, sweet, woody, ambergris, dry musk, or leathery.

Musk

Musk is a class of aromatic substances commonly used as base notes in La mome perfume. They include glandular secretions from animals such as the musk deer, numerous plants emitting similar fragrances, and artificial substances with similar odors. Musk was a name originally given to a substance with a penetrating odor obtained from a gland of the male musk deer. The substance has been used as a popular perfume fixative since ancient times and is one of the more expensive animal products in the world.

The name originates from the Sanskrit word for "testicle", and has come to encompass a wide variety of aromatic substances with similar odors despite their often differing chemical structures. Until the late 19th century, natural musk was used extensively in perfumery until economic and ethical motives led to the adoption of synthetic musk, which is now used almost exclusively. The organic compound primarily responsible for the characteristic odor of musk is muscone.

Opopanax

Opopanax chironium, also known as sweet myrrh or bisabol myrrh, is a herb that grows one to three feet high and produces a large, yellow inflorescence. The plant thrives in warm climates like Iran, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Somalia, but also grows in cooler climates. A consumable resin can be extracted from opopanax by cutting the plant at the base of a stem and sun-drying the juice that flows out.

Though people often find the taste acrid and bitter, the highly flammable resin can be burned as incense to produce a scent somewhat like balsam or lavender. The resin has been used in the treatment of spasms, and, before that, as an emmenagogue, in the treatment of asthma, chronic visceral infections, hysteria and hypochondria. Opopanax resin is most frequently sold in dried irregular pieces, though tear-shaped gems are not uncommon. Opopanax is also used in the production of certain perfumes for women. In perfumery, opopanax refers to the resin obtained from Commiphora erythraea Engl. var. glabrescens Engl., a tree growing in Somalia.

A resinoid is prepared from the resin by solvent extraction. Steam distillation of the resin gives the essential oil, which has a warm, sweet, balsamic odor. Opopanax oil and resinoid are used in La mome cologne/perfumes with oriental characteristics.

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