The fragrant beauty of Ireland’s ‘Bitter End’
There’s much to be said for bitter – and not all of it negative. One of the four primary taste sensations, bitter resides at the very back of the tongue at the farthest remove from the lips. Bittersweet, for example, offers exactly what it promises, cutting the sugary with something bracing, an antidote to cloying.
Similarly, Bitter End, one of ten eaux de parfums from the Roads Fragrance collection, is inspired by the west of Ireland: a remote and beautiful land’s end where the ocean smashes against the cliffs of shale and sandstone. Here, at the very western edge of Europe, only the hardiest flora survive: a lush carpet of lichen, mosses, ferns, wildflowers, and bracken.
This is the stunningly dramatic locale where film director David Lean filmed Ryan’s Daughter, his cinematic adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary: a land of visual splendor where the expanse of sky and untamed nature unleash a pagan wildness within the soul.
With Bitter End, bright herbaceous top notes of green complement the deep earthiness of oak moss and vetiver. Grassy meadows flecked with mint and wild thyme wave in the late afternoon sun. In the distance, clouds roll closer, swept across the sky, while on the ground, amidst violets and figs, two lovers await the storm.
A paean to Ireland’s harsh beauty, Bitter End celebrates the homeland of Danielle Ryan, the founder of the Dublin-based Roads Luxury Group. Launched in 2013, Roads is an international lifestyle company that encompasses a publishing house, a fragrance line, and a film division.
For her fragrance line, Ryan worked with a world-renowned perfumery to develop a collection of ten eaux de parfums, each inspired by a specific place, memory, person, experience, or emotion. Launched at Barneys in the United States in the spring of 2014, all ten Roads fragrances are created and manufactured by hand in the United Kingdom. The original Roads Fragrance collection will be supplemented by the annual release of a new eau de parfum, as well as a home fragrance line.
Lingering like a scent-laden letter sent from across the sea, Bitter End beautifully captures a land where wind-blown flora root in cleaved stone.
