Muguet (Le Muguet)(1910)

Another lily-of-the-valley composition, this one from Francois Coty rather than Houbigant's Premier Mai released two years earlier, opening on green notes rather than citrus before the muguet heart, closing on musk and woods. That two major houses released lily-of-the-valley soliflores within a few years of each other reflects the note's enormous popularity in this period, driven by advances in synthetic aldehydic materials that finally made a convincing muguet accord commercially viable. Coty's version opens on green notes rather than Houbigant's bergamot-and-green combination, giving it a slightly more vegetal, stem-forward character ahead of the floral heart. Lily of the valley's status as a synthetically-reconstructed note, since the flower itself yields no extractable natural oil, made it something of a proving ground for perfumers demonstrating technical skill with the new aromachemicals of the era. It stands alongside Coty's many other soliflores as part of his extensive early-1910s exploration of single-flower compositions.