TiL, or a journey to the heart of heritage
During these Heritage Days, we are looking at the cradle of TiL, the Dordogne and the family estate, whose lime trees inspired the creation of the brand.
A land of plenty, it is no coincidence that man chose to live in the Périgord 30,000 years ago!
It is an old land, cradle of humanity, where the wind of history blows at every turn, to offer a fabulous journey through time. From caves and medieval fortresses, vestiges of Homeric battles, to Romanesque abbeys and Renaissance castles, in breathtaking landscapes of gorges and rivers, valleys and forests, rocks and pastures…
A preserved land, with an unequalled gentle way of life, bathed in a golden light, where time takes its time. Like TiL !
These Heritage Days are particularly important to us because they are an opportunity to celebrate heritage in the broadest sense of the word, which is so present at TiL.
A historical heritage
The family estate in Dordogne is an old building from the early 17th century, built under Louis XIII, topped by a row of machicolations and two slate pavilions, flanked by vast outbuildings.
Each generation has had the heart to preserve it, and even to embellish it, and we have taken up the torch, at the price of much time and energy, but guided by the passion to make these pages of history live. On the facades as well as inside, the wrinkles and marks of time can be read, witnesses of the past centuries, but this is what makes all its charm!
Numerous outbuildings made it an autonomous and prosperous domain: farm, kennel, woodshed, stables, barns, orangery, large greenhouse, chapel, pigeon house, fish pond, …
It is this autonomy that we try to perpetuate.
The domain also included a forge which, still in the 19th century, produced more than 500 quintals of iron.
A vegetal heritage
In the heart of the Parc Naturel Régional Périgord-Limousin, in the Périgord Vert, the estate is in a natural setting, with a magnificent perspective and an infinite view, without any construction, on fields, meadows and forests of oak and chestnut trees.
The French-style park of the estate was created in the 19th century and decorated with alleys of linden trees, the preferred alignment tree of large parks and gardens, since the 18th century. It is not for nothing that it is the species celebrated by the gardens of Versailles, the Invalides, the Palais-Royal, the Champ de Mars, and many large or small squares in towns and villages… A tree with a majestic appearance, offering generous shade to protect you from the sun during walks, and fragrant in spring. And a tree that is considered so protective and beneficial that Pliny the Elder already called it the “doctor-tree”, and that it was planted by royal order near the hospices.
It is this tree that guided the creation of TiL, a holistic brand by nature, since the powers of the linden tree on the skin, body and mind are now valued by science and neuroscience.
The domain is still a land of abundance, with the vast vegetable garden, cultivated in permaculture, and the magnificent old greenhouse, from the 19th century, still in use.
An olfactory heritage
Linden trees are part of everyone’s olfactory memory. When they bloom in June-July, exhaling this divine and delicate smell of honey, the memory power of the linden tree is revealed. Did you know that Marcel Proust’s famous madeleine, evoked when we speak of a flavor or a fragrance that shakes the memory, was soaked in an infusion of linden? And that it is the subject of sublime descriptions in several passages of “A la recherche du temps perdu”?
“And all of a sudden the memory came to me. This taste, that of the little piece of madeleine that on Sunday mornings in Combray, when I went to say hello to her in her room, my Aunt Léonie would offer me after having soaked it in her linden infusion.”
It is this emotion that the famous perfumer Francis Kurkdjian – who composed Til’s eau de toilette, L’Eau Qui Enlace – has transcribed with his infinite talent…
“Linden is the scent of my childhood, the streets of my hometown, the end of spring that announces the arrival of summer heat. It is also that of the TiL domain, which I have known for two decades. The large flowered Tomentosa there are particularly fragrant on summer evenings or in the brisk dawn air.I let myself be transported by my own memories for a free and sentimental interpretation, like an olfactory postcard stamped with the memory of this touching place. I sought to translate the flamboyance of the flowers welcoming the bees and their joyous buzzing, with the breeze in its leaves and flowers! From this story was born a restrained contemporary formula that uses all the aspects of the linden flower, simultaneously slightly green and honeyed, powdery and orange scented. It’s the idea of a gentle sensuality, caressing and luminous, that corresponds, I believe, to our era…”
A family heritage
At the origin of TiL, a story of life and passion… the love of three sisters for their land and their childhood home, those of their father and grandfather.
Finally, the growing need for meaning and the desire to share their soothing and regenerating power with as many people as possible gave birth to TiL.
Our only desire? To bring through them a little bit of better living, with a touch of lightness and carefreeness, in these troubled times when stress invades our lives.
