SPICE UP YOUR LIFE

The warming, healing saffron may have cosmetic benefits too.

- KATE GUADAGNINO

On the islands of Crete and Santorini, millennia-old frescoes depict girls and monkeys harvesting flowers: saffron crocuses, whose scarlet stigmas, when plucked and dried, become the precious spice. Saffron was used by the Greeks and other early civilizations as a flavoring, a dye, a medicinal cure-all, and a purifier. The Chinese believed it fended off bad chi; in ancient Rome, it was scattered in the streets to cover up the odors of daily life. Today, it’s beauty and wellness types who are increasingly embracing the ancient ingredient. See Matiere Premiere’s heady, concentrated Crystal Saffron Eau de Parfum and Les Eaux Primordiales’s Saffron Superfluide. “It’s very metallic—cold and hot at the same time,” Les Eaux Primordiales’s founder, Arnaud Poulain, says of the note; “it gives power to the fragrance.” As Antonin