Wear your vegetables
Citrus and gourmands are girlish; florals, womanly; aquatic is boyish; while musky and spicy are manly. You know what has it all? Vegetal scents.
Think about it. Don’t carrots make your mouth water with just a whiff of sweetness the way a gourmand would while you julienne it for your salad or dice it for your soup or juice? Muddling herbaceous basil already signals your brain with the promise of a good time – whether you’re recalling a gin basil or pesto. Watercress, when grilled, has the peppery first whiff of musk. It’s a journey for your palate – why not wear them on your skin?
The discovery came to Officine Universelle Buly’s Ramdane Touhami when, in 2019, he stumbled upon a hundred small paper boxes containing collections of seeds from a mysterious antiquarian. After proving their provenance from a 19th-century school of Swiss botany, he asked himself: What if vegetables were the most forgotten notes in perfumery?
This kind of out-of-the-box thinking rooted in honoring thousands of years of botanical and olfactory magic isn’t new to Touhami or the brand. Buly was clean, natural beauty far before it became a buzzword. Founded in the early 1800s, revived in 2014, and brought to Manila by Jappy Gonzalez’s H&F Retail Concepts in 2022, Buly is a trend-setter and revolutionary for the preservation and celebration of natural ingredients while constantly innovating its formulations.
Buly is also working towards COSMOS-Organic certifications, an independent organization that’s one of the most widely used standards for organic and natural cosmetics in the world.
The latest collection, Les Jardins Français, makes use of traditional French vegetables, fruits and herbs more commonly found in the culinary arts rather than the commonly used mix of flowering tops and plants. Andes verbena and Ulu basil (Gonzalez’s pick) is zesty. My favorite Iraqi beetroot and Egyptian rhubarb are floral-like yet not quite. Scandinavian redcurrant and Peruvian tomato are juicy. Oriental watercress and Sardinian parsley is spicy yet invigorating. Caribbean sweet potato and Afghan carrot are creamy and sweet. Indian cucumber and Syrian mint is as refreshing as blending both ingredients with ice on a hot summer day (which is every day in this side of the world).
Every Buly around the world transports you to its 6 rue Bonaparte apothecary. In Greenbelt 3, essential Filipino veggies get their proverbial flowers in an artful arrangement by Margarita Fores, anchoring the store for the launch.
Les Jardins Français come in the Eau Triple, a gentle, light, and milky water-based perfume that contains no alcohol and can all be sampled with the La Sizaine set in travel-friendly 9 ml vials. As Buly is all about perfuming oneself in different ways, the scents come in the Huile Antique, a non-sticky, Ancient Greek skincare-inspired body oil made up of apricot kernel, sesame, and coconut oils best used right after a bath on the body or hair ends. Or channel Cleopatra, Poppaea Sabina, or Diane de Poiters and cover your skin in milk with the Lait Virginal. Its vegetal glycerin, derived from coconut and palm kernel oil, offers a texture that is moisturizing yet not overly rich. Also made with vegetal glycerin is the Savon Superfin, a neutral PH soap that’s gentle yet thoroughly cleansing.
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In the Philippines, Officine Universelle Buly is at Greenbelt 3, Makati. Follow @officine_universelle_buly_ph for updates.
