Bois de Violette

Bois De Violette from Serge Lutens. Another poetic and complex creation from the house, one that keeps me guessing whenever I wear it. To be more specific, I don't smell much of the violet flower here nor the violet leaf, at least not in a "tangible" way. The perfume is all about the spices, mostly cumin and the woods, with an ever-present purple hue that leaves room for interpretation. I wonder why Monsieur Lutens decided to add no color to this perfume. He loves suggesting what his perfumes are about to unfold by painting them accordingly. I would have had Bois De Violette, a light purple color. Yet he decided Sarrasins should be a deep purple. That, I never understood. For me, Bois De Violette stays true to the Feminite Du Bois structure (the perfume that sprang the entire "Bois" series), taking away the difficult facets and perfecting them. I could never bring myself to like Feminite. As much acclaimed and loved as it is, I never fancied it - always felt too sharp on the spices and the cedar, and too fruity. More suited for women, I feel. Bois De Violette tones down the spices but keeps the cumin, maybe even amplifying it a touch, smooths out the woods in the base by adding a touch of oakmoss and fluffy musks, and tempers the fruity aspects to a mere suggestion. It smells how I wanted Feminite to smell - more melancholic, poetic, rounder and well-behaved, unisex. The opening is spicy but focuses mainly on the cumin note, not overly done but present. Immediately, the purple color starts to permeate the scent profile. At this point, I am left guessing the source of it. Is it plum, or violet, perhaps both? A fresh and crisp breeze blows through it like the chilly air caressing the grass in the forest. And then the cedar in the base feels supported by some additional creamy woods, musks, and bitter-green moss. A spicy and woody take on violet, devoid of trivial sweetness and full of surprises. Whatever creates the omnipresent purple sensation is going to be a perpetual source of intrigue for me. And that is why I feel this perfume is among the most poetic and intelligent from this house. It lets the wearer add his/her hero to the plot while laying down the grounds for the story. IG:@memory.of.scents

There is so much more to Bois de Violette than the notes listed and many have been left out (such as plum, peach, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, musk). It is part of the Bois series that includes Bois et Fruits, Bois et Musk and Bois Oriental, which are all very close relatives of Feminite de Bois. You can look at the notes on those to kind of see what is missing. They all smell incredibly similar and to most people who were not sniffing around for the difference, they may be mistaken for being the same perfume. I happen to be in the LOVE camp on ALL of them...so much so that I have full bottles of Feminite, Bois et Fruits and also Bois de Violette. They are so incredible that I can not live without a single one of them. I assume the woody cedar base is something you either love...or do not. I can not imagine smelling this and doing anything but swooning but I realize fragrance strikes us all differently. Bois de Violette is the softer and less intense version (as compared to Bois et Fruits and Feminite)...less cinnamon and spice. It is overall a much more gentle fragrance. The extra violet on top of the SL cedar Bois base makes for an incredible combination. While it contains synthetic ingredients (as most perfume does), in no way is it some bad synthetic department store smelling fragrance. This is high quality and complex and interesting and I am madly in love with it. Violette is more casual and wearable for me as compared to Bois et Fruits or Feminite. I wear all of them and love all of them (with Feminite probably being my favorite) but I feel that Violette has a more relaxed feel to it and something that I can wear more often. If you own Feminite or Bois et Fruits, you probably have no need to add this to your collection. Unless you are like me and are completely obsessed with this smell and have to have all of them. I feel like they are something truly special and I just can not be without them. There is a reason why Luca Turin said that when he bought a bottle of Bois de Violette that he felt like he was “carrying the most precious object in the world.” I pretty much feel the same way.

I think it's a fantasy smell because it's hard to control. Almost every time, Bois de Violette can bring me different ideas, ranging from physical discomfort to pure, beautiful moving, and several differences are related to the spraying method and spraying amount. Bois de Violette is the most recognizable variation of the classic Feminite du Bois. Reduce the sweetness a little, and combine the two kinds of unpleasant sensations of fat powder and green (leaf) to give birth to such a psychedelic perfume. (Violet Leaf has an iron or metallic flavor.) I stubbornly want to touch the beauty that the perfumer in heaven praises. In the afterglow of the setting sun, purple light and shadow were reflected on the ground, and the pattern of the kaleidoscope changed and shone before my eyes, and the pieces of purple and pink glass reflected the luster of gems. And I am surrounded by the rose window, in this atmosphere, immersed, seeking a moment of peace. The Bois de Violette is to me what the stained-glass window is to me, as the Gothic church is to me. The colors of Bois de Violette are the colors of dreams. Bois de Violette smells surprisingly simple. Its flesh is not plump, but slender and fragile, a violet quality, linear. A crystal clear, thin to sheer powder, I'm sure there are many fragrances inspired by it, one example would be Iris Cendre (Naomi goosir). Bois de Violette and L'Heure Bleue come from different brands and are composed and expressed by different fragrances. For their connection, I lean towards heliotrope, or a violet-iris bond. The texture is all a fine, powdery, farthest to the 1906 Apres L'Ondee. To be able to appreciate, I will not miss the violet. A "deep" first impression, good or bad, I think, can be the worst perfume you've ever tried, or the most beautiful perfume you've ever tried. I hope everyone who owns Bois de Violette can understand its value.

Fantastic. I got a sample and ordered a full bottle the same day! The combination of the woody spice and slightly sweet floral violet is brilliant. It does smell "old fashioned" but only in the sense of a truly classic novel of manners (think Jane Austen) or a high classical concerto. Perhaps there is a touch of Victorian era romance here. I picture the Victorians very taken with violets. I liked the previous review mentioning a "violet patch sprung up in the midst of an oak forrest." Yes, that sums it up for me, too. Not a heavy, hit-you-over-the-head floral like some of the Italian scents I've sampled lately- much more subtle, but sensual, in an understated, spicy/woody way. Give it a sniff! Checking online, I do not see a lot of availability for the smaller bottles and hope this is not being discontinued. Smaller jars were not featured on the S Lutens website... only a bell jar at $310.

Violet is such a charming note. The subtle ubiquity of it makes it feel at once naïve and sophisticated, haute and base. One makes countless associations, everything from candy to flowers to sunscreen. Violet just seems to wander around singing its sweet, moody lullaby for everyone it encounters. In this series, Sheldrake wraps the cedar around his finger like a brushed gold ring--soft and luminous— amplifying whatever green notes are present into a lively shimmer under the top note, in this case a big, dark, cushion-cut violet, and sends all that green-gold warmth sparkling through it. The result is rich, brilliant, and entirely unexpected. Bois de Violette is a Grande Dame of a perfume. This is about as sophisticated and commanding a fragrance as you can get under the name “Violette”.

This is truly a wonderful scent. Several people comment on its fairly linear quality. I am so happy to say that I disagree. On me, it changes throughout the day. It begins with a lush smell of violets. Semi-sweet, not sugary. No vanilla tones. It is dreamy while full of light. Amorphous. I picture the violet of the Serge Lutens boutique in the Palais Royal. A substantial, yet soft scent. About mid-day the woods become much more pronounced, and I find myself strolling and meandering through a dappled, scented forest. This evening, 13 hours after my sprays from early morning, I am still surrounded by this scent. Now it envelops me in an intimate, comforting embrace. Still dreamy, but now more contemplative. This is an emotional fragrance, and one I will return to often.

Dark, unusual violet, slightly smokey and buttery. Of course, violets in the hands of Serge Lutens, what did you expect? Because her name is Di Bois, the power of the cedar balances her ethereal sweetness, giving her a spine, a character, becoming witchy and haunting; As if a fairy stepped inside the enchanted forest to pick some flowers, but the wicked wizard is lurking somewhere behind the trees... The perfume's evolution centres around the hunting of the fairy by the dark wizard, and as she's chased around the forest, you get whiffs of each ingredient. When she finally gets away, after three to four hours on my skin, I look forward to her next pursuit!

While the original Feminite du Bois definitely has a bold, genre-defining air about it, Bois de Violette is definitely my favorite of this series. It manages to include all the elements of the original (cool spiciness, florals, woods, musk), but balanced in what feels to me as the most approachable and versatile way. The cedar and prickly iso e super marries so well to the slightly sweet violet ionones. Rather than the entire spice cabinet, I just feel the slight, fresh camphoraceous smell of something like cardamom maybe? It definitely has the feel of a magical walk in an idealized woods. Slightly offbeat while also being pleasant and universal (IMHO).

FYI: This is still in production. It is in the Flacons de Table (bell jars) collection. Available at both Paris boutiques and also the Lutens counter at Galeries Lafayette in Paris. You can also order it from the website. Something stirs deep inside of me when I smell this. It's the softest bouquet of violets. There is a slight amount of woodiness that never overtakes the floral aspect. It's both a little creamy and ever so slightly powdery. A thing of indescribable beauty. Is that a very clean bergamot that I'm smelling? There's definitely something very, very citrusy about this, but it isn't sharp. How enigmatic!

A really cold and beautiful violet scent; I can't understand why they decided to discontinue this beauty. For me, it's Iris Silver Mist, Sa Majesté la Rose, and Un Lys but for violet. One of those incredibly beautiful works around one flower, and when you've smelled it, you will think about it every time you smell another perfume about that flower. It's a really cold, gothic, in the 19th-century sense, violet. It makes you feel like a Victorian woman with consumption, looking at a violet field, thinking that you'll die at your peak and that no one will ever see you fade, unlike those little, fragile flowers.

This violet is a snow queen. She is cool and collected. When I wear BDV, I envision that I am in a wintery forest fairyland, minty frosted violets twinkling in the light from the sunbeams filtering through the cedars above. Lovely, dries down powdered. There is the perfect combination of violets and cedar here, and violet leaf to keep it from being to sweet...very very lovely and wearable while I sit here enjoying a cup of lavender tea. Looking forward to a FB. Violets in the snow A very cool, and refreshing violet... Enchanting fairytale fragrance, I loved it the minute it hit my skin

The first time I wore this, I thought it was beautifully made, but the cedar overpowered the violet. My strongest association with cedar is my mother's closet, which I don't want to smell like. The second time I wore it, the violet overpowered the cedar. I'm not sure if it's my nose or the hot weather, but it's lovely like this. Try this chameleon more than once. Update: I've fallen in love with it. Bois de Violette improves with each sniff and sparkles in cold weather. Reminds me of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker––I put this on before every ballet class.

I feel a little biased writing a review on this perfume because it was the perfume that began my "niche" obsession! I had the tiniest decant of this and fell in love with it. To me it is a perfect blend of masculine (woodsy, lightly smoky) and feminine (candied violet, green violet leaves)notes that compliment each other perfectly without any one particularly standing out. It has a fairly linear quality that for me is a positve but I could see where it would be a more "boring" Lutens fragrance for some tastes.

Beautiful bouquet of violets. If ever there was the most perfect ode to this flower, here it is. The perfume begins with both the facets of this flower and the leaves and closes with woody ozonic notes, including a nice cedar and synthetic musky ozonic notes. But it is a violet show from start to finish mostly. The slight female leaning scent has moderate sillage and good longevity. If you are a fan of this flower, you owe it to yourself to try this gem. Enjoy!

Hands down my favorite interpretation of violets. The cedar in this composition means this doesn't end up too powdery or sweet. I have other violet based perfumes but none come close to the ethereal cloud of Bois de Violette. It may only last for a couple of hours, but those few hours are perfection. Performs better in the shoulder seasons - Spring and Fall. Stays close so no one else may notice but I love this masterpiece and feel content keeping it to myself.

At first this is a blast of semi-sweet violets. Then it goes away and I think it's going to be one of those fragrances that shouts and then vanishes. However, about twenty minutes later it emerges as a gorgeous, violet, woody fragrance that smells of freshly sharpened pencils and pixie-stix candy. It's how my desk must have smelled in elementary school. It reminds me of librarians, teachers, and yardsticks. I enjoy it, and it suits me well.

This scent is pretty linear. The Cedar and Violet leaf are dominant throughout with a touch of powder from the violet flower. The sillage is low and the scent is rather short lived. It is very beautiful while it lasts though. This one makes me think of sundresses with little floral patterns. All dainty and girly. This is also a very comforting scent for me, which is why I've considered buying it despite it's short longevity.

If you are looking for some spring, bright violet smell - Bois de Violette might not be for you. Here the violet is very real, but dimmed and mixed with cedar. The result is a beautiful, delicate, sweet fragrance, definitely on a feminine side. This isn't a "big" fragrance, it seams simple, modest and comforting, stays close to your skin.

a masterpiece for Luca Turin and for me too !!! this is a precious gem. A true, gorgeous violet flower in the center of a dance of woody notes, which in turn enhance even more the violet accord. Very elegant and sexy. It's in my top 5, and in case of discontinuation... i bought 2 bottles ! 5/5 stars

A beautiful woody violet. I mainly smell violets, and they smell lovely. I would call this a wedding day scent. Its feminine and classy. And far away from the sugary messes on offer nowadays.