Haute Voltige

Bought this on sale last spring as the weather was heating up and just didn't "get it". Pomegranate came across rather more like grapefruit which usually turns to the dreaded "kitty pee" on my skin, and yes, it did this time, too. But I've learned not to give up on a fragrance until I've worn it in both hot and cold weather since many seem to "prefer" one or the other & even come across as completely different scents, polar opposites in fact. So, having worn Skin on Skin, Amour Nocturne and Deliria in the past week I cautiously reached for Haute Voltige on a gray, chilly & rainy day and VOILA! Now comes full on pomegranate and right behind follows a gorgeous wintery fir. Not a hint of grapefruit and not a whiff of "KP". Pomegranate is the only fruit here and it's a genuine pomegranate, like opening a bottle of ice cold POM brand pomegranate juice. And then comes the fir --a crisp,piney green, definitely NOT cedar, a note I love but don't find here at all. Next my nose picks up the tang of juniper berries, as if you've crushed some in your hands, not just poured a generous helping of gin. A bit of pepper spices up the undercurrent of some vague blend of woody notes that bind to a nice base of oakmoss (my Precious!) that gives the whole blend substance. Cold temperatures really make HV glimmer and shine like no mere fruity fragrance. I drove and walked around doing last minute errands, both ordinary and holiday, all day long (so 6-8 hour longevity) and Haute Voltige shimmered on my skin and clothes in a way that reminded me of Guerlain's Winter Delice, Clinique's Wrappings and Goutal's Nuit Etoilee. Yes, this is definitely a cold weather fragrance and I'm very happy I held on to it long enough to make this discovery. Discontinued but 4.2oz bottles are still available online at a fraction of the original price. If you're looking for a cold weather fragrance HV might just fit the bill.

I have only recently become interested in the L'Artisan Explosions d'Émotions range, partly due to their sudden decrease in price in response to the brand's bottle redesigns and subsequent discontinuations. I had read many reviews on all six fragrances here on Fragrantica, and the general consensus was that they were risky blind buys. Haute Voltige was one fragrance I found rather tempting as a blind purchase, but I did refrain from doing so as reviews were less than promising. Luckily I managed to test Haute Voltige at one of my local department stores as they still had a tester on display. The initial blast was super fruity, tart and fizzy. I actually mistook the dominant pomegranate note for a tomato leaf accord at first, but later realised my error when the sweetness came into effect. Haute Voltige is a very unique fragrance but also a very pleasing one. After the powerful, fruity top notes begin to fade, Haute Voltige softens into a somewhat powdery blend of balsam fir, oakmoss and juniper berries which is rather sensual on the skin, and my partner tends to agree. Pomegranate can be a tricky note for me to wear at times, especially juicy pomegranate fragrances like Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir. Thankfully Haute Voltige is a tad more subdued and has a similar powdery, oakmoss-y drydown to my signature fragrance Annick Goutal's Passion EDP. I would go so far to say that Haute Voltige is one of my favourite L'Artisan Parfumeur scents. Longevity is superb and the sillage is strong yet not too overpowering. It's a shame that this fragrance in particular has been discontinued whilst two other scents in the Explosions d'Émotions range have been promoted to their permanent line-up.

There is a nice ozonic touch to Haute Voltige that brings to mind hot wires and the smell of air before a thunderstorm. I'm surprised I've not yet come across anyone mentioning how cleverly and naturalistically "electric" this one is. Having read the reviews, I was expecting sth terrible and conceptual to the point of being unwearable. Well, quite the contrary. I like it, wear it with pleasure, and am impressed by Duchafour's wit and craft. The clash between futurism reminiscent of CdG's Odeur offerings and the fruity-floral sweetness (pomegrenate and peony) is refreshing, fun and... works. For me at least ;)

I have to disagree with all the negative reviews. This is really a beautifully balanced fruity floral and I'm amazed at how it remains balanced, never veering into too much of the woods in the base. I'm wearing it on a very cold wintery day and it is brightening the day considerably. Gotten some nice compliments on it as well. Not a sillage monster and with decent longevity, I think there is room for a fb of this in my collection. I don't like everything Duchafour creates but this is just right.

Apparently I love pomegranate and black pepper because the opening for this is AMAZING! And it's even winter so should be even better in spring :o) I believe this is the only pomegranate forward fragrance I own! I know I have some with it buried in others, but never number 1 noticed note :o)

This smells Christmas-y. I like the smell a lot, but it is not my style, as far as something to wear on my body. The peony meshes very well with the pomegranate and pepper to make a "Christmas berries" (the kind you might see with cardinals and conifer sprigs on a generic holiday card) scent. The juniper berries are mitigated by the pomegranate/peony/pepper accord, and the fir. The juniper berries are definitely present, but without the cat pee smell I was dreading.

Clean,fresh and dynamic. This is different scent, strange, and that surprises you... Well balanced,floral. The sillage is normal, and longevity is good (about 6-7 hours). This perfume that evolves slowly. It is not heavy, is a light scent that gives brightness and liveliness! Overall not bad. I'm curious to try other "L'Artisan Parfumeur Explosion On emotions" ... Sillage: 6/10 Longevity: 7.5/10 Scent: 7./10 Overall: 7./10

This is such a strange beast. LLB_addict is right, the opening is really beautiful. But after that, when I wore it at home to test it, it became a fruity bubblegum drowned in a dirty ashtray. Today I wore it to work, just to give it one last chance, and it surprised me. No ash, just a nice fruity scent. I just might keep it.

Name is very apprioprate . I like it a lot and will get full bottle. But this is not a crowd pleaser . thank god for freaks like that.

It has really fresh and nice smell. Smells like a jump in the air ❤️😍

I truly don't get this perfume. From the notes this sounds interesting, but "Haute Voltige" is awful, no not for being a bad smelling perfume, but for being so boring and having a price tag that this scent doesn't deserve. Hell, this should go for 35$ maximum. "Haute Voltige" basically is a syntethic pomegrante scent infused with loads of spices and finishes of as a slightly sweet musky scent, hell this doesn't even smell like pomegrante for more than 5 minutes. It's so generic that I could not even tell which floral notes are here without looking up that it's peony. A huge dissapointment. Low silage and staying power of 3 hours. Spend your money and time elswhere.

Please (!!!) try this perfume before buying. It is by no means a safe blind buy. I bought it without trying first, and now I can't even use it as a room spray because I get the dreaded cat p*** smell very clearly. Ps. At least now with this perfume, I've found the first one that I can't stand.

I like buying perfumes blind. Then I test them without knowing the notes, and trying to understand what it smells. I will be short: toilet in the plane. Sorry, but not the best from AP

Per the name this does evoke a feeling of electricity in the air. It smells like lightning struck one of the wooden poles supporting a powerline, and now the wood is raw and exposed and singed and the snapped powerlines are crackling and sizzling beside it. There's nothing cat piss-like about it on me but there is something synthetic sitting beside the wood that strongly evokes burnt rubber. I feel like I've crashed my car in a bad thunderstorm. Honestly, really unpleasant, a really severe and violent-smelling scent. Scrubbed and trashed the tester.

A sharp, sweet floral with an undercurrent of cat pee. Yeah, I know everyone experiences scent differently. I think the "pomegranate" is coming across more like sweet and sour vomit. It might be biology or chemistry but this was not made for me. I have not had the courage to ask anybody else I know to test it on themselves.

I don't remember the last time I was so offended by a fragrance. Haute Voltige literally smells like a filthy diaper. Absolutely disgusting.

I love Bertrandt Duchafour's creations in general, as I find him original and inspired in his blends. But I bought this blindly, thinking I would love it ( love balsam fir and juniper berries...and I am disappointed. Not because I can't smell those notes, because they are here, nice and clear.... It is because to me it smells very manly, and only the drydown becomes softer, unisex, a little sweet. In general I enjoy unisex fragrances but the opening here has cedar too, which is a very manly note.... Or so it seems. I smell nothing metallic and the pomegranate shows only on clothes, not on my skin. To be fair and square it smells like someone getting drunk with gin ( think spicy and aromatic British gin like Beefeater ) and perhaps dry martinis with a splash of pomegranate in an evergreen forest by a bonfire at the beginning of winter. And the snow started falling... making the rustic wood cabin much more inviting than it was before. Nowhere do I see the explosion of joy . It's rather melancholic. It's cold, trying hard to warm up. On clothes the juniper and balsam fir shine. On skin I get the woody cedar that I don't like. It isn't as bad as others describe it. It just misses the effervescence one expects reading the description and the notes. In other words, I find it lovely but manly... Quite classy, with obvious high quality ingredients like all L'Artisan(s) but lacking the key ingredient which seems to me all other perfumes from the series have "the shock ". Nothing shocking in this one.

I am so proud of myself to be so good at blind buying. I don't think I would pay much attention to this one if it would be only one among many samples. But as I've blind bought the whole bottle of it, it has a whole different value. I think I hit just the right time to buy it, cause it is very springish fragrance and as I walked around outside I felt like it mixed perfectly with all the scents of nature. Like wearing it makes me pay more attention to other scents around me. It is a bit strange, but not so much. It is not invasive nor loud nor exquise, but I still think it is very special in its own way. I find it very delicate but at the same time masculine. I don't think I own any other perfume that would have this type of masculine vibe. I think it is mix of balsam fir and juniper berries. However, I don't find it masculine overall. I find something vintage about it, in a very good way. Obviously, I like pomegranate. I like it because it is not too sweet, but it is still very happy scent. I like fresh mix of woodiness, fruit and flowers. The sillage is bad, I agree. Bottom line is that I don't think I have smelled something like Haute Voltige till now and that I love wearing it. I am very excited about getting to know it even better.

I'm not sure what I think of this. It's one of those scents where the notes combine to create a hybrid scent and it's hard to pick out the notes. It does evolve though. The opening is pomegranate and peony with fir and juniper. This is actually a better combination than it sounds although the juniper does get pungent occasionally. As it settles the oakmoss and pine get stronger and the pomegranate fades away. The pine eventually leaves too and I'm left with a creamy and slightly sweet your-skin-but-better drydown. I think that I really like the combination of pomegranate, peony, fir, and oakmoss but I might like a different blend better on me. I don't think I'd miss the juniper. I'll be revisiting this though. An interesting this did happen. After I'd worn it for a few hours I wanted to see the opening again and I reapplied. This time it was rather soapy, unlike the first application. Apparently the scent doesn't layer with itself well.

Adding to my previous review: I just realized what is probably happening here, and I noticed that only because I sprayed the Haute Voltige in the morning and decided not to wash it off until it goes away on its own.... If you have patience to wait, and you survive the masculine phase, the base is rewarding as it's becoming more aromatic and a bit sweet.... To me it brings the memory of Enchanted Forest. Bernard Duchafour thought to use some of his previous success with the Vagabond ? No black currant but the juniper berries, pomegranate and balsam fir create quite a similar effect. I think many negative reviews came from people who didn't wait for the drydown . Longevity is good, silage low.

I just tried a sample of this on my hair and skin earlier today. Downright original in the composition I must say. At first I was wondering WHAT my olfactory senses were absorbing...I had never experienced such a combination of scents before. Thankfully, looking up the reviews here have provided me with a platform of sorts! Has anyone ever worn the now discontinued Clarins Par Amour Toujours? After more than 4 hours, Haute Voltige on me is just like it (PAT never lasted longer than a couple of hours, though). As I did love PAT, I am inclined to like HV, too.

I'm here to defend this perfume. I don't get any cat pee, airplane toilets, or lemon cleaners. I didn't know if I liked it; it was not a love at first sniff. Strangely enough, I reached for it over and over again. But that's the point; it's like looking at an abstract painting. I like what I see, in this case, what I sniff and what my brain makes out of it. It is unique and abstract, elegant and different. This fragrance is something else. It works for me, so I'm stocking up on the last remaining bottles I can find. To me, this is wearable art.

On my girlfriend's skin, this is like an entire joke and punchline contained in a scent. We both sniffed and started laughing at the same time. It’s got these two extremes of *pow* incredibly dirty animalic and *p-pow* harsh lemon-scented cleaning product. Like someone trying frantically to clean a beavers’ den with Lemon Fresh Pine-Sol. On me thankfully the animalic note recedes a bit, and it’s more like a freshly-mopped camp washroom.

Today I received Haute Voltige which Is blind buy. Never tasted it before, was very excited, as many of blind buyers would understand. Opened and sprayed straight away , couldn’t wait for it to warm up in the room temperature, it was strange at first, after half hour became very pleasant, interesting and for some reason reminded me of Dent de lait Serge Lutens, is anybody felt any similarity? I might wait a bit and taste it again.

I know it’s not listed in the notes above, but I get a strong narcissus, which is giving the pissy indolic note. But it is not as extreme as Myth Woman from Amouage. I think Bertrand controlled the indolicness pretty well by balancing it out with florals (the rose appears in the heart) and wood, but I can understand why this scent is not mass appealing. This is for advanced noses only, so not blind buy safe.

Applified Musc et Mure also from L'Artisan Parfumeur and nothing else. I never like this "realistic smelling" musky/animalistic scent (I believe it is the cat pee that other reviews prefer to) so this is a no for me. Explosions d'Emotions collection offers some of the most unique smelling and full body scents but this one is not one of them.

Not my favorite. I spritzed this on at the store, and wore it for the whole day, but it did nothing for me. Pomegranate is not my favorite scent, and this fragrance has loads of it. Not crazy about the strong woody notes, either. It's not horrible, but just not for me, especially with such a hefty pricetag.

I don’t like it. This reminds me of potpourri from the 1970s. The pomegranate note is synthetic and, for lack of a better word, generic. I can’t believe this is a Duchaufour, as it feels like a muddled mess. For some unexplainable reason, my husband likes this which really makes me question his nose.

Vintate 50's or 60's perfume, modern salon-quality shampoo, and piney smelling Christmas decorations. I think.

Hats off to the 7 most nose blind peeps who voted this "similar to Kilian Apple Brandy "

Smells very sweet on my for some reason. Not a very complex scent.

A mix of cardamone and a cheap toilet paper. Weird.