- Latin name
- Spartium junceum
- Family
- Legume family (Fabaceae)
- Origin
- the Mediterranean (Italy, France, Spain)
- Parts used
- flowers
- Raw materials
- broom absolute
- Extraction
- solvent extraction
- Olfactory group
- floral (honeyed), green
- Position in the pyramid
- heart
- Synthetic substitutes
- honey and hay bases, floral molecules
Broom (Spanish broom) is a Mediterranean shrub with thin green stems that in spring are covered with bright-yellow, pea-like flowers. The flowers yield a rare and expensive absolute.
How it smells: warm, honeyed and herbal: sunny yellow flowers, wax, a light hay-like and green shade. Broom sounds generous, Provençal and a little wild, like flowering hills in the sun.
Broom absolute has a dense honey-and-hay aroma with a faintly animalic warmth, so perfumers use it as a natural “amplifier” of floral compositions. It makes them warmer and richer.
What it pairs with: with mimosa and honey — sunny yellow florals, with everlasting — warm herbal honey, with jasmine — lush floral compositions, with hay — summer meadows, with musk and woods — a warm natural base.
Good to know: the English name broom comes from its use: its flexible stems were once bound into brooms, and its fibres were even woven into coarse cloth.
