La Violette was launched in 2001 as part of Annick Goutal’s soliflore series.

La Violette is a soliflore, a fragrance that reproduces the scent of a single flower. Often, people overlook soliflores because they think they’re too simple and uninteresting. But there is something to be said for the skill and dexterity required to interpret the scent experience of a single flower in an evocative fragrance like La Violette.

La Violette is no shy violet. It opens boldly with a blast of metallic violet that is soon sweetened by raspberry. It smells like the little purple violet candies my English aunt used to send me when I was a child. That’s what gets you hooked. It’s not long before a tangy green note appears, making the scent of flowers, leaves, and stems more natural - as if it were a little bouquet of violets. Turkish rose is here, too, adding an opulence that rounds out and warms the violet. A touch of iris gives it a powdery, vintage feel. As a soliflore, La Violette is pretty linear, but what you experience is how feminine, beguiling and romantic it is.

Notes: Violet, Turkish rose, raspberry, violet leaf.