Balenciaga L'Essence

The fall weather is now beginning to catch up with us, there is a chill in the air when I go to work in the morning and when I get out of class at night.  Now that the weather is really beginning to feel like the season is changing, I have begun to look through my perfume and sample collection and see what fragrances I will be wearing over the next few weeks.  With all the Sephora orders that I make, I still have a very healthy perfume sample collection and I will be digging through these for a fragrance that I would like to start wearing in the cool weather.  As of right now, I don't have room on my shelf to get any new bottles of perfumes out so I need to try something new from my sample collection and focus on using a bottle or two up before I am able to open anything else up.  Of course, as I work through my sample collection I am sure that I will only find more fragrances that I want to buy in the full bottles...

The first sample that I have decided to pull out of my sample collection is from Balenciaga, a brand that I have never tried a fragrance from before.  This couture line only has two fragrances out and Sephora is the only place that it near me where I can find fragrances from this company.  L'Essence is the fragrance that I requested the sample of, I always leap toward ordering samples of fragrances that I have never tried or heard of before since I can always throw the sample away if it smells awful on me.  I have used this fragrance for two days now and I have found yet another perfume that I want in the full bottle size!

I found the description of the fragrance and the notes on the Sephora website so I will pull the information from that website.  "Balenciaga L'Essence captures the essence of Balenciaga Paris with added intensity.  A feminine and modern fragrance, it gets as close to the skin as leather and vibrant woody notes express an assertive sophistication.  The fresh yet coarse scent of violet leaves exudes an exquisitely stimulating sense of purity and youth.  Ands it note of vetiver, at one wild, unruly and incisive, takes the upper hand.  Inspired by Balenciaga jewels, the bottle reflects the high quality and savior-faire of the brand.  The hematite cap and a pyrite collar, both true expressions of elegance and modernity, complement the green gradation of the bottle."

The notes of the fragrance are: Violet Leaves, Vetiver, Woody Notes.

This fragrance is very strong when applied to my skin and I will need to wear this during the cooler weather, wearing during the summer would clear an elevator (to say the least!).  This fragrance starts with a strong hit of violet, it very powdery and unique.  I have never used many violet fragrances in the past but now I love this fragrance and am also looking forward to trying the Violet Blonde fragrance from Tom Ford.  This was a very new type of fragrance for me and I am seeing my perfume collection head into a new direction.  The violet note stays on my skin for several hours and next the vetiver note begins to comes out and then the woody notes come out and the mixture remains on my skin for the next ten hours.  This fragrance is another one of those that lasts forever on me and will be a great purchase. 

This scent would be appropriate for any type of professional environment, it is clean and subtle (at least in cold weather) however this type of fragrance does need to be applied in moderation.  Wearing this fragrance made me want to put on heels and a pencil skirt and this is the only way that I would wear it, this is not a weekend fragrance.  I could also see this fragrance dressed up for night, it would still work weel with crisp tailoring and great heels. 

This fragrance will go on my shopping list however as I stated above, I don't even have room for on my shelf for the fragrances that I already own.  Realisitcally, I will use the rest of my sample over the best few weeks and then I will buy a bottle to put aside for next fall and winter.  I now want to try the other fragrance from this company and see if I love it the way that I do this one!

photo courtesy of Sephora