L'Heure de Nuit

This scent really fulfills the brief of modernizing L'Heure Bleue and making it more accessible to a contemporary audience. All the things that make L'HB itself and quintessentially Guerlain are there--jasmine, orange blossom (orange flower being maybe the most dominant floral note), orris, heliotrope/coumarin/vanilla, and some resins and musk in the drydown--but all just calibrated and tuned in a different way. It still has that hazy vanillic Guerlain goodness in the background, but the thick and sticky heliotropin note is tempered a bit (Vanilla is really present though) and the floral core made a bit more transparent and luminous. Whereas L'Heure Bleue is really spicy, L'Heure de Nuit has some sprinklings of the clove, cinnamon, and whatever other spices live in L'Heure Bleue. I saw someone discussing the rarity of the Fol Arome re-release, but saying that L'Here de Nuit scratched the itch just enough and I actually have to agree smelling them both together. Fol Arome, itself, feels like a more transparently floral and herbal/agrestic version of L'Heure Bleue and L'Heure de Nuit definitely shares some DNA with that vintage unicorn. I get some of the Fol Arome peach and a sort of Citronella-like rosy note, and I also feel both L'Heure de Nuit and Fol Arome rely less on the doughy coumarin/heliotrope pairing that is more prominent in L'Heure Bleue. If scents remind me of each other, I like to smell them side by side to detect the differences...and doing so with L'Heure de Nuit and the Fol Arome reissue is interesting! There is actually a lot of similarity--so it looks like Thierry Wasser was inspired by Fol Arome even before the reissue of it--and therefore the distinctions really stick out. Some distinctly herbal notes that read as sage and carraway and a deeper animalic growl stick out from Fol Arome, and L'Heure de Nuit wallows in its vanilla a bit more. L'Heure de Nuit is rare too, but now that I have a big decant of it, I'm not nearly as sad that my last sample of Fol Arome is running out.

I just bought this beauty! This is what happens whenever I go to Montreal: I am so excited about being able to sniff some niche or higher end perfumes that I just cannot exert any cool self-control. It's the equivalent of the "now or never" deal. Do I regret it? Absolutely not! So what do I love about it? It starts bitter and powdery which is something I happen to adore. It may be the heliotrope (although there is no vanilla effect at this stage) or maybe some roots iris. Maybe there is some hidden violet? As it develops, the iris, musk and sandalwood become more present. It still is dry and powdery, with little or no rich or high pitched floral notes. Frankly, the listed jasmine and orange blossom are lost on me. But then... The dry down... It is simply magnificent. A very delicate yet present guerlinade. Iris and heliotrope are clearly present and so is sandalwood. No vanilla per se, but one gets the dry soft vanilla feeling. As for comparisons: yes I can smell a bit of l'Heure bleue... minus any spices. Since my skin just projects spices, l'Heure bleue ends up smelling somewhat like Mitsouko, which itself ends up smelling like dried moss and spice (and I mean dry... as in stale). So for me, l'Heure de nuit is like how l'Heure bleue should smell: tender, beautiful, a bit nostalgic, without the old arid desert scent of dry and unforgiving spices. But mostly, I find L'heure de nuit to be a more a approachable (and likeable) Après l'ondée... Less violet and green, but still delicate, dry and powdery. In fact, L'Heure de nuit is the most perfect combination of two perfumes I loved from afar, but could never wear... Spices and violets are not for everyone... So thank you, Thierry Wasser.

Maybe we should get this straight... When Thierry Wasser reinterpretated Jacques Guerlain's Heure Bleue in 2012 for the centennial after the initial release in 1912, he reconstructed it completely and initially called it Aurore. Aurore is the hour before sunrise (dawn) whereas Heure Bleue is the hour after sunset. So no surprise that Wasser's creation differs a lot from the one of JG. He privileged again the floral scents (mainly Iris and Heliotrope), still while limiting the powdery side of LHB. In 2012 the Guerlain house made a very few of "transitional" numbered special collector sets with each set containing 4 flacons of 30 ml (sold for 3000 €...): (1) LHB extract, (2) Zenith (Midnight) EdP (never reedited since then - something supposed to be in between LHB and HDN), (3) Aurore EDP (which was renamed Heure de Nuit thereafter) and (4) Aurore Extract. This was done to show the differences between the original LHB and its reconstruction by Wasser. In the end, Guerlain kept both creations and released Wasser's interpretation as Heure de Nuit (and dropped the name Aurore). On my skin LHB sometimes turns sour after a few minutes because of its powdery base (like quite a few other parfumes), whereas Heure de Nuit develops for many hours into a firework of scents, making it by far my preferred parfume of Guerlain. It's always useful to take a look on the transparent sticker fixed under the flacon: if you have a flacon of Heure Bleue with a sticker labeled "Aurore", it's a precious collector bottle, especially if it's the extract ... and it's Heure de Nuit!

Guerlain L'Heure De Nuit is an elegant lady wearing a demure pale blue dress without anything 'prissy' about her. She is nice, but not overtly so. She is classy but not arrogant. She is beautiful, but she doesn't show it off. I can describe this perfume as something vintage and classic, yet very pure and soft. At first impression i thought it smelled very clean and similar to baby powder. How I was wrong! It opens with a slightly citric white musk, mixed in with a bunch of gentle florals - iris, rose, and heliotrope. The heliotrope is not vanillic, nor almond-like, seen often in typical gourmand fashion. It bears a powdery undertone accompanied with the musk. Let it settle and breathe in its sillage. The flowers become more subtle eventually and this leads to a soft floral-woody-musk. The overall feeling I get is calmness and contentment. L'Heure De Nuit is suitable for a lady with a sense of self-assurance and inner confidence. She knows that she is nice, classy, and beautiful. She does not need you to notice her perfume. She is happy in her own peaceful aura.

I sampled this nearly by accident when purchasing something else... and it won my heart at first sniff. It is now one of my most used Guerlains (my favorite brand). I truly love this perfume because I can smell its resemblance to L’Heure Bleue, yet it has some citric notes that uplift it up and make it more optimistic and wearable. For context, I am a 30 year old woman. I own and adore the legendary classics but in all honesty I do wear Thierry Wasser’s modern versions of the classics more often than the classics themselves. For example I wear Shalimar Parfum Initial more often than Shalimar, and Iris Ganache more often than Après L’Ondée. So L’Heure de Nuit is really perfect for my everyday life. I wear it for myself, not for others. It doesn’t project that much and I have never gotten a compliment on it. But I am floating on a heavenly cloud every time I wear it, I feel at peace and very much myself. I have L’Heure Bleue Extrait but for a different kind of occasion, like an elegant soirée. Long live Guerlain 🤍