Vouloir Être Ailleurs C.G.

This is hard to describe. I grew up with a large garden that had two 150 year old Linden trees. I smelled their greenness in the spring, their sweetness when they flowered, and then we dried the flowers and some leaves, and made this thin, aromatic sweet tea with them. So, to say this scent is nostalgic for me, would be a huge understatement. This smells exactly, and I mean exactly, like Linden blossoms: Their light, airy, a little green quality, combined with their strong sweetness. Then you smell the beeswax, and the hay, and the acacia, lime leaf and Angelica and it all smells like a beautiful, huge summer garden in the countryside, somewhere in Central/Western Europe. It dries down sweet, light, and airy. You can indeed smell the "yellow florals", it smells like pollen a little bit, especially with the beeswax, and you do also smell the greenness, though it is not dark or heavy or spicy-maybe spicy how very light green, new leaves are spicy in a delicate way. The sweetness is there, the honey is there, it does dry down slightly powdery, musky, ambery. Overall, it is rather a simple smell. To me there is not too much going on, the different smells all merge into a single, wonderful smell. If you want to smell like a garden fairy, or simple be transported to a childhood garden, this is an absolute must-have.

I recently shared a post on my Instagram on linden blossom fragrances that I own and asked others for their favorites. Vouloir Être Ailleurs C.G. from D'Orsay was mentioned most often and with enthusiasm. When I looked further into the release, I noticed that it was composed by Olivia Giacobetti, who also was behind the 2008 reformulation of Tilleul D'Orsay. Essentially, this could be considered a relaunch, with perhaps some modifications, but I am wholly impressed as someone who holds such a fondness for linden. It captures that golden yellow feeling of the blooming linden tree, reminding me of sitting under the canopy of an age-old specimen, taking in the splendor of the fragrance with sunlight filtered through the boughs and a light breeze cutting the humid air. It opens with a brief watery melon facet that soon fades into the verdant, tart, honeyed linden blossom in Technicolor. The addition of hay and beeswax (as in the previous Tilleul) punctuates the linden with a pastoral quality, feeling simultaneously fresh and earthy. It's absolutely magnificent.

Perfect linden. This truly captures a snapshot of a summer day lazing around under a linden tree with its polleny, slightly honeyed scent drifting in the wind. It begins very much as that impressionistic snapshot of dewey fresh ozonic notes before settling into an absolutely true realistic scent of linden and dried grass and hay up close. In that way, it is very similar to Giacobetti's treatment of lilac in En Passant, which similarly begins as a portrait of a rainy spring moment before slowly closing in on the hyperrealistic smell of a faceful of a wet lilac blossoms. This is utterly beautiful. I can see why some folks see a connection with her l'Ete en Douce, but that scent for me is much more about the enveloping white musks even though it has a similar linden note in it...this is the pure flower rendered more realistically. I'll be curious how this reads in the summer. Right now in the winter it's time travel, transporting...a sense of being somewhere else not as bleak and dreary and I'm so happy to have it around to smell.

Love this one. I just tested it in the shop on Rue du Bac. The tester bottle bore the name "Tilleul d'Ailleurs" and the (lovely) salesman told me it was the new name of Vouloir être ailleurs, which is indeed the reinterpretation of the historical Tilleul. I pass a magnificent lime tree in bloom everyday this time of year, and this frangrance really captures the tree's essence and magnifies it. EDIT: 4h later it is more subtle but still lingering as a skin scent. I'm not a huge flowery perfume girl, so to me this one, which captures the tree in bloom rather than a flower or bouquet of flowers is the perfect balance between floral and vegetal/green. Some green scents can be a bit harsh or lacking in softness, but not this one. So refreshing and comforting. I might have to pick up a full bottle soon!

I blind bought a sample of this because my initials are C.G., and it ended up being a happy coincidence that it's a beautiful fragrance that I like very much. I was shocked when I saw the notes here, because this is floral floral floral to my nose. I was expecting some very sumptuous white floral note like magnolia, but it seems like the linden blossom is doing all the heavy lifting here in a way I have never smelled before. It leans very white rather than yellow to me. I don't get much hay, a little in the dry down close up, and I don't get any beeswax myself. This reads as a very heady green white floral to me. The epitome of spring, but I think it's a good summer wear and something luscious in the deep dark of winter to remind you of the coming thaw. 8.5/10.