Rose & Vanilla Eau de Toilette 50 ml

Vanilla absolute is extracted from the fruits (beans) of Vanilla planifolia, the wonderful orchid creeper grown in Madagascar. Vanilla flowers are short lived and must be pollinated by hand, one by one, since their natural pollinator, the Melipona bee only lives in Mexico, where the plant initially originates.  

It was the French who imported the Vanilla to Mauritius, Reunion, and Madagascar. For years all attempts to produce Vanilla beans failed miserably. The hand pollinating process used at the time was disappointing. It was finally Edmond Albius, a young slave from a plantation in La Reunion, who found the efficient, albeit tedious, technique to hand pollinate Vanilla, that is still used today.  

It takes 3 years for the vanilla plant to start flowering. The flowers bloom for 3 months and must be pollinated fast and very precisely by hand, one by one. Once pollinated, the flower produces beans, that reach maturity 7 month later. The green beans are harvested, then plunged in boiling water to stop the maturation process and start a chemical reaction that will produce the Aroma that we have come to identify with vanilla. Follows a slow traditional refining process, with the beans drying slowly in the shade and the development of aromas. The full cycle from plantation to selling the beans takes 4 to 5 years.

Traditionally used for;