Verte Violette (2000)
by L'Artisan Parfumeur

More verte than violette. Within the first hour one spies a glimmer of Après L'Ondée's poignancy, when the violet, iris and heliotrope fall into step, but after this Verte Violette becomes quickly overgrown with lilacs and the drydown is sappy, musky and irritatingly prolonged. Violets and lilacs can both make for extraordinary fragrances (for example, Bois de Violette and En Passant, respectively); and the reference to Après L'Ondée is hardly something to be ashamed of. But Verte Violette feels like a very slack effort, satisfied with being conventionally pretty, and is probably best suited to people with an imagination deficit.

27th September, 2011.

The overall effect is wet cucumber peels on a wooden cutting board. [3 out of 5 stars]

14th May, 2011. (Last Edited: 15th May, 2011.)

Violet and I don’t always get along so well. In isolation I find violet oppressively dense and cloying, and I enjoy it best when it’s accompanied by contrasting sharp green notes, as in Grey Flannel, or rounded and softened with iris root and heliotrope, as in Après l'Ondée. Hence I held out hope that Verte Violette (“Green Violet”) would offer a pleasing approach to the violet soliflore. While some of that familiar violet opacity marks Verte Violette, I don’t fear imminent suffocation while wearing it. (I can’t say the same about Tom Ford’s Black Violet, Caron’s Violette Précieuse, or Serge Lutens’s funereal Bois de Violette.) That said, I don’t exactly enjoy L’Artisan’s violet. It smells blunt and unfinished, like an accord in search of a full perfume, and I think I’d like it more as a candle or a room spray than a fragrance for personal wear.

21st July, 2010.

I desperately wanted to love this one. Violets are an absolute fave of mine, plus I adore fresh green scents. You would think it a match made in heaven.

However, it was so faint and close to my skin that I could not tell I was wearing it. Had to literally press my nose to the crook of my arm to get a whiff. I prefer to be able to smell my scents wafting around me as I move about during the day.

At any rate I'm gonna obtain another sample and douse myself again. Just trying to find something that reminds me of the violette perfume I wore when I was eight years old, it was a gift and I cannot recall what it was.

26th February, 2010.

One of my favorite fragrances. It is subtle but longlasting, tender and soft. It shows it's best on feminine skin, but i love it so much I own and wear it anyway. Violette Verte has a minimal sillage - people notice it only shortly after application ("What smells here so nicely?"), but the way it gently caresses me with it's floral veil for so long makes up for it. One of my acquaintances said "You're not wearing it, you are making love with it" :)

2nd October, 2009.

This is a lovely, youthful and yet sophisticated fragrance. It can only be found in the L’Artisan boutique. The top note is a fresh, crisp delicate violet with a green backdrop. The middle notes are iris, vetiver and verbena – but the violet lasts through and through. It conjures up images of children dressed in church clothes playing in the garden in the spring time.

20th May, 2009.