Roadster
Man Fragrance

Roadster: A cartier fragrance launched in 2008. A wildly blended man fragrance. The ideal Cartier cologne for men.

Aroma Notes: Vetiver, Labdanum, Bergamot, Vanilla and Patchouli.

Bergamot

Bergamot orange, is a fragrant fruit the size of an orange, with a yellow color similar to a lemon. Genetic research into the ancestral origins of extant citrus cultivars found bergamot orange to be a likely hybrid of Citrus limetta and Citrus aurantium. Bergamot peel is used in men's fragrance/perfumery for its ability to combine with an array of scents to form a bouquet of aromas which complement each other. Approximately one third of all men's and about half of women’s perfumes contain bergamot essential oil.

Bergamot essential oil is a cold-pressed essential oil produced by cells inside the rind of a bergamot orange fruit. It is a common top note in perfumes. The first record of bergamot oil as fragrance ingredient is 1714, to be found in the Farina Archive in Cologne Germany. One hundred bergamot oranges will yield about three ounces (85 grams) of bergamot oil.

The scent of bergamot essential oil is similar to a sweet light orange peel oil with a floral note.

Vetiver

Vetiver is mainly cultivated for the fragrant essential oil distilled from its roots. In perfumery, the older French spelling, vetyver, is often used. Worldwide production is estimated at about 250 tons per annum. Due to its excellent fixative properties, vetiver is used widely in perfumes like Roadster.

It is contained in 90% of all western perfumes. Vetiver is a more common ingredient in fragrances for men. Indonesia, China, Haiti are major producers. Vetiver processing was introduced to Haiti in the 1940s by Frenchman Lucien Ganot. In 1958, Franck Léger established a plant on the grounds of his father Demetrius Léger's alcohol distillery.

The plant was taken over in 1984 by Franck's son, Pierre Léger, who expanded the size of the plant to 44 atmospheric stills, each built to handle one metric ton of vetiver roots. Total production increased in ten years from 20 to 60 tonnes annually, making it the largest producer in the world. The plant extracts vetiver oil by steam distillation. Another major operation in the field is the one owned by the Boucard family.

Réunion is considered to produce the highest quality vetiver oil called "bourbon vetiver" with the next favorable being Haiti and then Java.

Patchouli

Patchouli is a species of plant from the genus Pogostemon. It is a bushy herb of the mint family, with erect stems, reaching two or three feet (about 0.75 metre) in height and bearing small, pale pink-white flowers. The plant is native to tropical regions of Asia, and is now extensively cultivated in China, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as West Africa. The heavy and strong scent of patchouli has been used for centuries in perfumes, and more recently in incense, insect repellents, and alternative medicines. 

Extraction of patchouli's essential oil is by steam distillation of the leaves, requiring rupture of its cell walls by steam scalding, light fermentation, or drying. Leaves may be harvested several times a year, and when dried may be exported for distillation. Some sources claim a highest quality oil is usually produced from fresh leaves distilled close to where they are harvested;  others that baling the dried leaves and fermenting them for a period of time is best. Patchouli is used widely in Roadster men's perfume, modern perfumery and modern scented industrial products such as paper towels, laundry detergents, and air fresheners.

Two important components of its essential oil are patchoulol and norpatchoulenol.

Vanilla Beans and Roadster

Vanilla is a flavor derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), simply translates as little pod. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron, because growing the vanilla seed pods is labor-intensive. Despite the expense, vanilla is highly valued for its flavor, which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as "pure, spicy, and delicate"; he called its complex floral aroma a "peculiar bouquet".

As a result, vanilla/vanillin is widely used in both commercial and domestic baking, perfume manufacture and aromatherapy. Vanillin is a phenolic aldehyde, which is an organic compound with the molecular formula C8H8O3. Its functional groups include aldehyde, hydroxyl, and ether. It is the primary component of the extract of the vanilla bean. Synthetic vanillin, instead of natural vanilla extract, is now more often used as a flavoring agent in foods, beverages, and pharmaceuticals.

The largest use of vanillin is as a flavoring, usually in sweet foods. The ice cream and chocolate industries together comprise 75% of the market for vanillin as a flavoring, with smaller amounts being used in confections and baked goods. Vanillin is also used in the fragrance industry, in perfumes.

Labdanum

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 Roadster/perfumery.

Labdanum's odor is variously described as amber, animalic, sweet, woody, ambergris, dry musk, or leathery.

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