Matvey Yudov , Elena Prokofieva and Iulia Halatz included Violette Kew in their Top 6 list of the best perfumes from Esxence 2024, with their focus being on ”niche” fragrances that were exciting but wearable. Sergey Borisov, one of the editors and a longtime connoisseur of the brand, as well a Iulia Halatz coined Violette Kew as “The best scent of the first half of 2024”.
FRAGRANTICA LOVES VIOLETTE KEW
A new perfume creation, and then its launch, is an emotional journey. There’s a lot of work, feedbacks, and feelings involved in the whole process. Once it is released, the ultimate response is from the customers and the reviewers.
When Le Jardin Retrouvé’s perfumer Maxence Moutte presented his final version of Violette Kew to the founders, Clara Feder and Michel Gutsatz, he had taken inspiration from his childhood and combined it with his intention: creating a seemingly innocent violet, and turning it into a sensual, second-skin effect olfactive surprise. The two founder's, who had been closely monitoring the scent for one year, were as eager as Maxence to see what would become of that unusual and compelling scent.
THE BEST PERFUMES from ESXENCE 2024
Violette Kew was unveiled at this year’s Esxence in Milan, and it took the exhibition by surprise. Its reveal was kept a secret right up until the launch evening, and so this meant that there wasn’t time for reviewers and perfume industry insiders to form any preconceived ideas.
What deeply astonished Le Jardin Retrouvé team was the consistency and the number of Fragrantica reviewers and editors who fell in love with the new fragrance.
Matvey Yudov , Elena Prokofieva and Iulia Halatz included Violette Kew in their Top 6 list of the best perfumes from Esxence 2024, with their focus being on ”niche” fragrances that were exciting but wearable. Sergey Borisov, one of the editors and a longtime connoisseur of the brand, as well a Iulia Halatz coined Violette Kew as “The best scent of the first half of 2024”. In a previous article, Sergey Borisov’s take on Violette Kew was that it was “a bold violet. Even revolutionary in some ways”. Finally, Viktoria Vlasova, an editor and history of perfumery specialist and researcher, wrote a touching and interesting piece on The perfumes of Odette de Crécy in Proust’s books, writing that “I think such intensely violet scents would have found a place in Odette's boudoir”.
GOOD OLD FORGOTTEN
From these reviews, something amazing emerge: the notion of Neo-vintage. Take a somewhat old school nineteenth century ingredient, like violet, and give it to a talented twentieth century perfumer who knows the art of classical perfumery inside out, and guess what? You are in for a treat, one of those rare moment when you recognize a scent and at the same time feel pleasantly confused.
_“Violet perfumes have long been labelled as archaic and antique. It seems it is time to reconsider this profile. The new violet from Le Jardin Retrouvé looks very modern and doesn't evoke associations with heavily decorated old ladies from local government agencies. The contrast between the cold cardamom and warm cumin creates an unusual and very ‘niche’ contrast.” s_aid Matvey Tudov.
“… It combines two poles at the will of the perfumer: hot and cool, earthy and airy, spicy and sweet, human and elven, masculine and feminine, and even, with a certain amount of imagination - hard physical labor and Harry Potter-style magic.
Those two poles are cumin and violet. Spicy cumin and airy fairy-violets: a horse and an awe-inspiring doe in a bottle. Two very different materials, both with a powdery character… “ wrote Sergey Borisov.
“When creating the spectacular Violette Kew, Maxence Moutte_ had to overcome the limitation of using 90–99% ingredients of natural origin and also preserve the core voice and DNA of the 48-year-old historic Le Jardin Retrouvé house.”_ wrote Iulia Halatz who was there at the introduction of Violette Kew at Esxence 2024.
Moodbooster scents
Maxence Moutte had indeed many creative constraints when he created Violette Kew, and one of them was to comply to the Givaudan guidelines for the scent to be well-being inducing. After many trials, Le Jardin Retrouvé is proud to have the Givaudan certificate proving the benefits of this unique scent.