Ginestra (Broom)
EDC · 2001
Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella
Statement
Dyer's-Broom
Note Profile
About
Dyer's-broom is a dry green note, cool and bracken-like. It is not the honeyed broom of genet absolute, and the two should not be swapped.
Scent Profile
Dyer's-broom smells dry, cool and green, closer to bracken than to any flower. It has a dried, hay-like quality, the smell of fern gone dry rather than damp. A plain herbal body sits under it, the ordinary leafiness of a low shrub. This is not the honeyed broom of genet absolute. It stays cool, dry and a little woody rather than sweet or narcotic.
ScentWheel
Breadthbroad
EnvelopeTop · ~2h lasting
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
Seen in
Tap a perfume to see where Dyer's-Broom sits in it. The rest of the picture goes grey
Origin
Dyer's-broom is Genista tinctoria, the same plant as dyer's greenweed. Every horticultural source checked uses the two names for one species. It is a different genus from Spartium junceum and Cytisus scoparius, the plants behind the published broom note. Genista tinctoria was grown for a yellow textile dye, not for scent, and no extraction method, absolute or supplier could be found for it. One perfumery glossary states outright that only Spartium junceum is used for genet and that Genista tinctoria 'should not be confused' with it. Two real perfumes credit the note anyway: Azzaro 9 (1984) and Boucheron Trouble (2004).
Usage in Perfumery
A green top note in two perfumes, three decades apart. Parfumo records it in the top of the pyramid. Use it where a dry fern-like green is wanted without the sweetness that broom brings.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Dyer's-Broom
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Dyer's-Broom appears prominently.
