Many of my favorite notes in fragrance are essentially continuations of the ones which first drew me into perfume mania. One of my very favorite notes is a more recent dalliance and it came not from a bottle but at the edge of a blade. More specifically a double-edge shaving blade. About seven years ago I became sick of my morning shaving routine with whatever the current multi-blade wonder was at the time. I constantly had ingrown hairs and it never seemed like it was as smooth as I would like it to be. Through the vast resources of the internet I learned there was a different way but it would require a step backwards. Instead of finding out how many parallel blades you can fit on the head of a shaver the solution was to go back and use the kind of safety razor my father used, loaded with one double-edge shaving blade. They call this wetshaving and the gentlemen at the Badger and Blade forum gave me all the info I needed. Besides the hardware of the razor and blade I was also going to require some software, the brush and shaving crème. This led me to an afternoon sniffing different shaving crèmes and the one which surprisingly caught my attention was Geo F. Trumper Violet. We became partners in a process which saw me going from nick-prone newbie to smooth operator. Over the learning curve the smell of my violet shaving crème was my soothing companion. It also led me to searching out violet fragrances and there are many of them which are now my favorites.

This past October just prior to Sniffapalooza Fall Ball I was visiting Sylvie Ganter in the Atelier Cologne boutique down in The Fragrance District. She was teasing me with a sneak sniff of next spring’s first release. As I was starting to leave she said to me, almost as an afterthought, “We are making a special edition for the one hundredth anniversary of the Paris department store Galleries Lafayette.” I asked her who the perfumer was and she said Ralf Schwieger and then she swung the hammer, “It is a violet cologne absolue.” If there was any perfume house I would expect to get a violet fragrance right for me it would be Atelier Cologne. I asked for a sniff and she frowned at me and said all of the testers were still in Paris. She promised to send some to me soon.

Portrait of Adam by Marilyn Powers (1974)

That statement made my check of the mailbox, hoping for the arrival of this promised fragrance, a scene of a bit of sadness every day until the day the box with the Atelier Cologne return address was in there.  I scurried home busted it out of the box took note of the name, Sous le Toit de Paris, and sprayed away. There it was, my shaving friend was here in all its glory this was exactly what I wanted in a violet perfume. For those who love the sharp almost metallic ionone version of violets Sous le Toit de Paris is not that kind of violet. For those who like shrinking violet which stays in the background Sous le Toit de Paris is not that type either. It is a fully realized violet as the centerpiece of a cologne architecture. It is a classic cologne minus the lavender with violet in its place but then the extra power that comes with being a cologne absolue boosts this into a very different orbit.

Bouquet of Violets by Edouard Manet

Hr. Schwieger uses neroli and bitter orange, along with a very brilliant bergamot to open Sous le Toit de Paris with a classic cologne aesthetic. In the heart he uses violet leaf but instead of using the actual extract of the violet flower, and its olfactory deadening ionones, he uses a great green geranium and vetiver together to create a violet accord. All together the three notes smell like violet but my enjoyment of it lasts all day without fading down to a minimal detection level. The base notes are a coumarin-laden tonka matched with musk and a really fantastic restrained leather accord. This is the smell of the brush as I lather it up and press the badger bristles into my face to spread out the foam.

Sous le Toit de Paris has outstanding longevity and average sillage. Also despite this being a special edition for Galleries Lafayette it is also will be available on the Atelier Cologne website and in the New York City boutique.

This has probably become my favorite fragrance of the entire Atelier Cologne line. It is almost as if Hr. Schwieger made a bespoke cologne absolue for me. Ever since the bottle has graced my mailbox many of my mornings consist of my Gillette Red Tip loaded with a Wilkinson Sword blade gliding through a lather of Geo F Trumper Violet shaving crème but the best part of those mornings is topping it off with Sous le Toit de Paris and having that sunny feeling go on all day.

Disclosure: This review was based on a bottle of Sous le Toit de Paris provided by Atelier Cologne.

Thanks to our very special friends at Atelier Cologne we have a 30mL petit flacon of Sous le Toit de Paris to giveaway. To be eligible leave a comment naming your favorite Atelier Cologne or one you think might be your favorite. We will draw one winner on December 5, 2012.

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor

Art Direction: Michelyn Camen, EIC