Un Air d'Apogée
Parfum, Maison Violet (2018)

There are times when a dry down does a disservice to a perfume as a whole, and Un Air d'Apogee is a perfect case study. Nathalie Lorson loves her high impact materials and ferocious fixatives, and where I've responded favorably are in her works like Encre Noire, Perles de Lalique, and Montana Graphite. In this release for the resurrected Maison Violet, it begins with such supple tobacco, a velvet suede, and a recessed mimosa that unfortunately doesn't stick around for very long. It nearly approaches agrestic if not for its hermetic gloss. I really was enjoying it and thought I was going to fall in love.

Just as I was being taken in by what seemed to be hayfield nonchalance, a cashmeran and ambroxan seemed to loom from the horizon, and this pastoral landscape erodes and is replaced by a blasé Soho art gallery. It went from mellifluous to vocal fry over the course of an hour. I can appreciate cashmeran in moderation for its coniferous, herbaceous and intriguingly musty wood facets, but there's just a bit too much here, amplified by the ambroxan to the point where it agitated me over time and left me so disappointed by the plot twist. It could've turned out so differently—why Nathalie?

I feel like I found my perfect fragrance. It was an immediate feeling of bliss when I first smelled it and that feeling still happens with every successive wearing.

Sometimes, this seems to waft in and out like a whisper, and other times it appears to fill the entire room with its presence.

This has a lovely powdery greenness to it from the combination of the sage and mimosa. Underneath that lives a beautiful honeyed tobacco and a soft leather similar to the type you'd find on a pair of finely crafted gloves. The ambroxan isn't overloaded here and is used perfectly to give this fragrance some lift.

A hit of leather and a touch of honey were the first notes that I detected. All of the other notes followed suit. This one is nice, but don't enjoy it enough to purchase a full bottle. Even though I may have sung that song before. 6.5/10.....For now!

Oh Un Air d'Apogee, how I love thee. I am so incredibly infatuated by this gorgeous scent from Maison Violet! Immediately upon first spritz of this I am engulfed in a cloud of warm sweet leather followed closely by a smooth accord of honey blended with hay. A bit of powder follows - some gentle whiffs of iris and mimosa join the honey and hay as the leather takes a backseat to the suede and softer notes in the middle. It all sits snugly in a base of tobacco, cedarwood, and ambroxan. I don't really detect the anise and sage in the opening; for my nose the leather is clearly front and center in the beginning of this fragrance. I have never smelled anything quite like this before. Initially I was taken aback by how utterly different this was than any olfactory experience I've ever had, and I wasn't entirely certain what I thought of it. All I knew was that I couldn't stop sniffing my arm. Unlike most of the fragrances I love, which tend to grow in me gradually over the course of a week or so of wear, I was absolutely smitten by this within mere hours and I knew I'd have to buy a full bottle. LOVE this. Love it! I think Un Air d'Apogee is extremely underrated and am happy to call it my signature scent.

A stealth leather where all the notes sit so close in terms of olfactory perception that what one receives is a perfume of slight gradations. After a breezy hay-thrown opening, the mid-section reveals a palette of pale powders – iris, mimosa, suede tones all airbrushed by the mighty synthetics that form the backbone, namely cashmeran and ambroxan. It's a kind of striplighting that does the composition few favours and the cosmetics counter sweetness also detracts from the central leather theme. I kept thinking that a drier approach would have helped the overall effect and found myself unable to warm to Un Air d'Apogée – not for want of trying, I hasten to add.