Sous Le Vent (1933)
by Guerlain

I'm just a beginner and my nose isn't very articulate as yet but I absolutely adore this perfume. It's the vintage perfume I have. It's rationed for special occasions.

to me Sous le Vent is all about colours : the head is fresh-green with a hint of spices then it evolves toward something i would call yellow-green (a luminous feeling, like the first rays of sun on your face at spring with a gentle wind); the middle notes are back to fresh-green and soapy-green and the drydown is spicy-green (with a note that reminds me cinnamon?)
very subtle and refined, very unisex

Well, odysseusm has hit this one on the head! In addition to his accurate description, I have to comment upon the "lightness" of Sous le Vent. For all the grand herbs, florals, and woods - this one will never weigh you down!

Am in [B]Sous Le Vent[/B], and I love, love, love it. A gorgeous citrus-green, at first very much in the manner of a funky O de Lancome, with oodles of grass, moss and verdure -- all the things I love to roll in! I tend to struggle with older Guerlains, but this is an utterly effortless wear. I'd even go so far as to say that it appears to lack the requisite [I]guerlinade[/I] -- there's not a trace of vanilla, as far as I can establish, and I thank heaven for this small mercy. My only grumble -- and, sadly, it's a serious one -- is that longevity is short, which I find unusual for a Guerlain. It disappeared on me in an hour or so.

A mélange of green-herbal, spicy, and floral notes on a chypre ground. This is a very fresh, green chypre, however; a substitution of tonka bean for the patchouli in the base could easily have made it a green fougère, and the lavender does lend it that sort of character. This comes only in eau de toilette formulation, which is rather appropriate to the freshness of the composition.

Sous le Vent is French for "leeward," as in the name of the Leeward Islands. The scent was supposedly composed by Jacques Guerlain for Josephine Baker in 1933, for her to apply after her dance performances, which were the rage of Paris at that time.

How can I describe it? Fresh, green, neither feminine nor masculine. I feel it would be suitable for day or night; it would probably be better in warm daytime weather than in cool. It is a bit light-handed to expect much development from it apart from moderate to warm temperature.

The scent starts out very fresh: dry citrus, herbal, very green. It becomes subtly floral, the jasmine not predominating (but boosting the floral side of the lavender a bit); the carnation contributes a clove-like spicy freshness, and then there's some more green. The iris comes on as slightly earthy, but never chases away the green theme; and the woody notes give it depth and a certain roundness. It has a decent sillage and longevity for an EdT, but doesn't project especially far. Hug someone, though, and they're sure to notice.

Overall, the fragrance is refreshing and energizing; I would call it generally subtle (by which I *don't* mean weak); the subtlety is in the art of the blend and in the balance.

If you can find it, it's well worth a sniff. ...Oh, and in spite of Josephine Baker, not just for women...

Sous le Vent is an astringent chypre with agressive notes of oakmoss, galbanum and bitter citrus that I personally found to be very off-putting. It is a close twin to Coty's Chypre de Coty. In either case, I cannot imagine wanting to smell like these perfumes! Thankfully, Sous le Vent calms down eventually - I had to make myself resist scrubbing it off (ah - what I do in the name of perfume reviewing!). However, as chypres go, I easily prefer Chanel's 31 rue Cambon, Dior's Diorella, Hermes' Caleche or even Piguet's Bandit over Guerlain's Sous le Vent.