The choice of this flower was deliberate. During the 1840s, Europe was fascinated with botanical exploration and horticultural refinement. Greenhouses filled with exotic and temperate blooms became fashionable symbols of wealth and intellect. By naming this perfume Lathyrus Odorans, Guerlain aligned himself with the cultural ideal of the cultivated woman — elegant, educated, and attuned to nature’s finer expressions. The sweet pea, delicate yet vivacious, embodied gentility and refinement, making it a fitting muse for the women of Parisian high society.
The word itself evokes soft pastels and sunlit glasshouses — a cascade of climbing vines heavy with blossoms, their fragrance drifting like silk in the morning air. It suggests freshness, innocence, and romance — qualities prized in mid-century femininity. In a time when fashion emphasized lightness and grace, with airy muslin gowns, lace details, and pale colors, Lathyrus Odorans would have seemed a perfect olfactory counterpart — gentle, floral, and luminously feminine.
In scent, Lathyrus Odorans would have been interpreted as a soft, floral-green composition capturing the tender sweetness of sweet pea blossoms. The natural aroma of the flower combines honeyed, rosy, and mildly powdery facets, with faint notes of orange blossom and hyacinth. Since sweet pea itself yields no extract, Guerlain would have recreated its character through a blend of natural floral essences and early synthetic accords such as benzoin, rose, violet, heliotrope, and orange flower, giving the impression of dew-touched petals warmed by sunlight. The result would have been ethereal and luminous, neither heavy nor overly sweet — the scent of pure refinement.
Launched in the revolutionary year of 1848, this perfume arrived at a time of great social and cultural transformation in France. Yet amid political change, the fashionable elite continued to seek beauty, elegance, and signs of cultured distinction. Perfumes like Lathyrus Odorans reflected a yearning for natural simplicity — a reaction to the earlier excesses of musky, ambery compositions of the Empire period.
In the context of 19th-century perfumery, Lathyrus Odorans stood out as part of a new botanical modernity — an early move toward floral abstraction and delicacy. While others still favored bold, animalic scents, Guerlain’s Jardin d’Hiver line celebrated refinement, light, and nature’s poetry. Lathyrus Odorans, with its name steeped in classical beauty and its fragrance evoking the tender charm of the sweet pea, embodied the elegance and intellect of a new age in perfumery.
Jardin d’Hiver Collection:
Guerlain’s Jardin d’Hiver Collection, launched in 1848, represents a remarkable celebration of botanical singularity and refined artistry. Each fragrance within the collection is devoted to a single floral or plant note, captured with painstaking care to highlight its unique character and essence. The collection’s Latin-styled names—Tilia microphylla, Lathyrus odorans, Mimosa fragrans, Cyperus ruber, and the most recent addition (1853), Mimosa Esterhazya—lend an air of classical sophistication, evoking the scholarly prestige and aristocratic refinement associated with the study of plants and natural sciences. These names, both precise and exotic, signal the high level of craft and attention devoted to each fragrance, appealing to a clientele who valued knowledge, taste, and exclusivity.
At the 1851 Universal Exposition, these perfumes competed not merely as products of luxury, but as demonstrations of technical mastery and artistic innovation. Each extrait is a distillation of a single botanical note, conveying the essence of the plant in a way that is at once vivid, nuanced, and enduring. Tilia microphylla, for instance, would have unfolded with the delicate, honeyed softness of its linden blossoms, while Mimosa fragrans exudes a sunlit, powdery warmth, evocative of early spring mornings. Cyperus ruber, with its earthy, subtly green facets, contrasts with the intensely floral sweetness of Lathyrus odorans, creating a spectrum of olfactory experiences within a unified concept.
The collection was designed for the highest echelons of society, intended for women who were not merely consumers of fragrance but arbiters of taste and refinement. These perfumes were not relegated to the dressing table as casual adornments; they were worn as statements of identity and prestige, perfuming the air with subtlety and elegance. In essence, the Jardin d’Hiver Collection embodies the aristocratic ethos of mid-19th century Paris—a union of botanical scholarship, artistic sophistication, and the cultivated elegance expected of the queens of fashion and fortune. Each fragrance is an intimate portrait of a singular flower, captured with the utmost care, and presented as a jewel of olfactory refinement.
Fragrance Composition:
So what does it smell like? Lathyrus Odorans is classified as a floral fragrance for women.
- Top notes: sweet pea, bergamot, lemon, orange, aldehyde, green hyacinth accent, cassie
- Middle notes: tuberose, orange blossom, jasmine, ylang ylang, lily of the valley, violet, orris, sweet pea, rose
- Base notes: vanilla, vanillin, rosewood, caraway, sandalwood, spices, balsamic notes, resins, tonka bean, musk, ambergris, civet
Scent Profile:
Lathyrus Odorans unfolds like a walk through a late-spring conservatory — a dreamscape of delicate blossoms, golden sunlight, and faintly warmed woods beneath glass. As the air stirs, the first breath of the perfume opens with a vivid, crystalline freshness.
At the top, sweet pea—the namesake flower—greets you with its tender, honeyed sweetness and faintly rosy nuance. Though the true flower yields no extract, Guerlain recreates its fragrance with a clever interplay of natural floral essences and early synthetics. The sweet pea accord shimmers with the powdery lightness of heliotropin and the gentle creaminess of benzyl acetate, mimicking the soft, pollen-like aroma of the living bloom. Bergamot from Calabria follows, lending its bright, green-citrus sparkle — more refined and rounded than other varieties, due to its high concentration of linalyl acetate, which imparts a delicate floral sweetness rather than a sharp tang. Lemon and orange peel add brilliance and lift, rich in limonene and citral, which flood the air with golden light, while a whisper of aldehydes lends a silken, airy sheen — that faint, champagne-like fizz that gives the floral heart room to bloom. Green hyacinth introduces a watery, verdant facet, cool and dewy, while cassie absolute (from acacia flowers) brings a powdery mimosa-like softness with honeyed undertones of methyl ionone, binding the top accord with gentle warmth.
The heart of Lathyrus Odorans is a cascade of flowers — lush, graceful, and deeply feminine. Tuberose from Grasse breathes a narcotic creaminess, rich in methyl benzoate and indole, which give its white petals both their luminous sweetness and faintly animalic sensuality. Orange blossom absolute, sourced from Tunisia, introduces a radiance of honeyed bloom and green freshness, its linalool and nerolidol contributing to that sunlit, soapy transparency so prized in 19th-century floral perfumery. Jasmine — likely of the grandiflorum variety from southern France — expands the bouquet with voluptuous warmth, its benzyl acetate and indole blending to form a fragrance that feels both innocent and intimate. Ylang-ylang from the Comoros islands adds an exotic touch, with creamy, custard-like notes of benzyl benzoate and p-cresyl methyl ether that soften the sharper florals and enhance the overall radiance.
Lily of the valley and violet contribute cool, powdery freshness, conjured largely through the early use of synthetics such as hydroxycitronellal and ionones, respectively — materials that captured, for the first time, the airy purity of blossoms that could not be distilled. Orris root from Florence lends a luxurious, buttery depth, its natural irones unfolding in soft, violet-like waves. Rose — almost certainly from Grasse or Bulgaria — provides the composition’s emotional center, its geraniol and citronellol weaving a velvety sweetness that harmonizes every petal in the bouquet. Through it all, the sweet pea accord reappears, delicately threading the composition together — a gossamer veil of honeyed powder and spring air.
As the scent settles, the base emerges like warm sunlight on polished wood. Vanilla from Madagascar, with its rich vanillin content, imparts both sweetness and warmth. Guerlain enhances it with synthetic vanillin, deepening its creamy, gourmand character — a hallmark of the house’s early innovations. Rosewood adds a silken, faintly rosy woodiness through its natural linalool, while sandalwood from Mysore contributes a milky, balsamic softness known for its creamy santalols, prized for both depth and longevity. Tonka bean and its natural coumarin bring a sweet, almond-like dryness that fuses perfectly with caraway’s spicy, resinous edge. Subtle balsamic resins and ambergris lend smoothness and fixative power — the latter providing a soft, animalic warmth that wraps the bouquet like sunlight through amber glass. Civet and musk, used sparingly, give body and sensuality — a faint heartbeat beneath the florals.
In the air, Lathyrus Odorans feels both alive and nostalgic — a perfume that shimmers between innocence and sophistication. Its notes unfold as though carried by a spring breeze through an old Parisian winter garden — tender green stems, dew-covered petals, sunlight diffused through glass, and at its heart, the timeless grace of the sweet pea. It is a fragrance that bridges nature and artifice, where each synthetic whisper enhances the natural beauty of the flowers — not to replace them, but to give them an eternal bloom that never fades.
Bottle:
Presented in the carre flacon.
Petit courrier des dames: Journal des modes, 1848:
"By creating the Château des Fleurs, inventing the Jardin d’Hiver, and making flowers fashionable in all the salons of Paris, the trend of perfumery simultaneously returned—after having been somewhat neglected due to the overuse of amber, musk, and vetiver. Yet the perfumes that reappear today bear no resemblance to those bourgeois emanations of old-fashioned coquetry. At Guerlain, 11 Rue de la Paix, however, belongs the right to this thoroughly modern renewal, offering compositions more delicate, more suave, more gentle on the nerves, and more voluptuous to the sense of smell than any other.Ladies of good society are recognized by these perfumes, just as the high lineage of noble families is recognized by their coats of arms; and when a lock of hair flutters near you, when a magnificent handkerchief falls beside you, or when a fresh, coquettish glove happens to brush near your lips, you can judge by the fragrance emanating from that hair, that handkerchief, or those gloves whether the woman to whom they belong has received at Guerlain the mark of good taste, fashion, and refinement.New odors composed by Guerlain:
- Extrait de Lolium agriphyllum
- Extrait de Phlomis asplenia,
- Extrait d'Azalea melaleuca
- Extrait de Cyparisse Elaidon
- Extrait d'Hyemalis anthelia
- Extrait de Cytise sylvaria
- Extrait d'Anthemia nobilis
- Extrait de Cyperus ruber
- Extrait de Tilia micropluilla
- Extrait d'Hymenaea nitida
- Extrait de Mimosa fragrans
- Extrait de Caryophilus album
- Extrait d'Amyris Polyolens
- Extrait de Polyanthe suaveolens
- Extrait de Lathyrus odorans
- Extrait d'Ocymum dulce
By bringing to light these entirely new perfumes, Guerlain points out that they can only be found at home, and recommends to be on guard against the imitations that one will try to make."
