There are many things about Colognoisseur HQ which make me happy. One of them is a patch of wild violets which grow along the property line for about ten yards. When I let the dogs out in the morning, I often follow them on their morning ablutions. In the summer I tend to head back towards the violet patch. Since our poodles tend to like to wake me up around dawn, I will be observing a shade of different purples spotted with dew. DSH Perfumes Violettes de L’Aube captures this in a stunning violet solitaire.
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz
This is one of independent perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s “Violet Trio”. Of the three it is the one which wants to be the most realistic. There are few solitaires which attempt to get this real. Ms. Hurwitz captures the flower, the dew, and the dirt it grows in. She achieves it through a series of intricate accords.
Violettes de L’Aube painted by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz
It begins with a humid summer morning as she mixes the green of clover, a set of ozonic notes, and ambrette. This is the scent of daybreak. The ambrette provides a little humidity. The clover is a smart surrogate for grass. The rest is that hazy morning light.
This brings us to the violet accord. She uses a lot of violet, but I think there is almost as much iris. Together they make a hyper-real violet scent. She then uses petrichor to coat it in droplets of dew. Violet leaf and vetiver form a green underpinning of leafiness.
The base accord is the slightly damp dirt they grow in. The iris helps here as the rhizome meets the use of geosmin to form the accord of dark soil. As all three accords come together it is what my patch of violets smells like first thing in the morning.
Violettes de L’Aube has 10-12 hour longevity and moderate sillage in the Voile de Parfum concentration I tested.
I usually try not to compare other perfumes but this one constantly had me thinking of another dewy floral; Olivia Giacobetti’s En Passant. She captures lilac after a spring rainstorm right down to the ground it grows in. Violettes de L’Aube is its contemporary. In this case Ms. Hurwitz produces a spectacular purple (D)awn. (pun intended)
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by DSH Perfumes
–Mark Behnke
