Because I Have Violet Tendencies: My Favourite Violet Scents

The scent of violets in any form has been like catnip to me since I was a small girl and had a green love heart shaped mini bottle of Devon violets perfume, alongside a big Parma Violets habit where I was scoring several tabs a day at one point. When I was a child, there were violets outside our garden gate. I can report that they do not smell at all of anything whatsoever. Violet is one of those manufactured fantasy scents, a bit like amber, because actual amber doesn’t smell either, but amber in fragrance, as we know, is another story.

My spectrum of violet cravings veers from simple Parma Violets, to loud, soapy and powdery, and back to that synthetic smelling green glass bottle again. I haven’t met a violet I didn’t like yet. If you’re like me, join in, won’t you? My name is Sam and I have uncontrollable violet tendencies.

Guerlain Insolence

We can’t even start the conversation without this one. Big, soapy, powdery, loud, hairspray notes- it’s all there. I absolutely love this and can’t actually fathom why I don’t own a bottle. I shall put that right soonest. Insolence is all about bold, unapologetic violets made into a loud glamorous perfume that has big sillage and doesn’t care.  Don’t bother with meek dabs, go big or go home.

Find Guerlain Insolence here.

4160 Tuesdays Paradox

I was a late convert to this one, somehow missing the fact that it was a violet fragrance. Once we found each other though, we bonded for life. This is a delightfully uplifting violet that I like to wear to work on the grounds that it’s inoffensive and refreshing. It’s accentuated with zingy grapefruit and pretty petitgrain (basically the leaves from an orange tree) and has little touches of herbs around the edges. I’m on my second bottle. Buy your first bottle here. It has an interesting back story too, which you will see when you click the link.

Karen Timson Envide

Karen Timson Envide is a stunningly beautiful violet fragrance, which stopped this violet fan in her tracks. Envide is both modern and traditional: Traditional because violets have been popular since before Napoleon, who, it was documented, had a violet fetish and a heck of a cologne bill, and yet Envide is also modern, with its splashes of fresh dewy greenery. Like another of Karen’s fragrances, (Côte de Vermeille), this has an irresistible white musk finish, wrapped in a violet bow. Buy it from the Karen Timson Fine Fragrance website, and check out the discovery set while you’re there.

Yardley April Violets

I’m never without a bottle of Yardley April Violets. I use it to layer violet into fragrances that haven’t got enough violet. It’s clean, transparent and almost gauzy, but the violet scent is unmistakable and uncomplicated. It’s also cheap as chips. You can find it on allbeauty for just £10.95. Incidentally, the first version of this fragrance was launched in 1913. Talk about a classic!

Al Aneeq Violet

That’s the name; “Violet”, nothing fancy, and it does what it says on the tin (or rollerball in this case). My 10ml rollerball comes everywhere with me and is a strong, long lasting (and alcohol free if that’s important to you) scent that is a simple violet soliflore. Nobody can accuse me of not catering to all budgets. this violet rollerball is yours for £6.95 from Amazon.

Guerlain Après L’Ondée

To me, this long-time classic smells of damp stone statues, moss and violets after the rain. It is evocative, gentle, and full of violets, iris, orris, orange flower, carnation and probably the teardrops from the weeping angels at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.  I didn’t like this one at first, but as my tastes evolved, it grew and grew on me until I now accord it the reverence it deserves. This is so perfect that even Karl Lagerfeld himself is rumoured to have worn this, despite having helmed his own fragrance house.  Hard to find as an eau de parfum, but still out there as an eau de toilette.

How about you?

Do you and violet get along? Do you love that wholesome nostalgia it provides? I always love to hear from you. Comments below.

Disclosure

I am not affiliated with any of the brands above and my opinion is my own.