Every year around this time, I abandon all my heavy ambers and blankety comfort scents and start raiding my perfume closet and sample boxes, looking for spring.
Every year around this time, I have had it with winter, with the cold, with having to bundle up and forever trying to locate my gloves.
Perfumes that I adored yesterday are cloying and constricting today and I crave air. I need the warmth of the sun, not an oven, I need blue skies and green meadows, not my living room. I need the sparkling freshness of a light summer scent. I wear more cologne-style perfumes and tender florals in February than I do in June (which is when I’m back with the ambers. 😉 )
So which perfume is all that and more? One by Pierre Guillaume of course. Trust Pierre to help me out. I’m so grateful, I might even forgive him for the bottle.
Created in 2011 by Pierre Guillaume, Vohina includes notes of peach blossom, lavender honey and hay.
The notes list alone looks delectable, just listen to how this smells…
Opening with lush peach, lavender honey comes through quickly, accompanied with a soft hay note. The Huitieme Art perfumes are all very airy, transparent and deceivingly simple, and Vohina is no exception, but we all know that is a style I like (Jean-Claude Ellena is my friend.)
I have heard some say that Vohina is very sweet, it isn’t dry, that is for sure, but it is not cloying and sugary sweet at all, and I am someone with honey-amplifying skin after all.
Vohina on me is exquisitely feminine, tender and evokes pastoral scenes of rolling hills and blossoming flowers in the sun.
Every year around this time, I go looking for spring. I have found exactly what I craved in Vohina. I dare you to apply it without a smile.
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Oh my, it’s somewhere in that big box full of unsorted samples (and I just ordered some more…) – if I only could find it … Because I’m done with winter too, I can’t stand it any longer !
It has been a particularly hard winter this year, hasn’t it? If you can find it, I think you might enjoy the bit of sunshine Vohina brings. 🙂
I haven’t tried Vohina yet but Naïviris is very light and sheer. And not dull at all. Like Ellena’s ;-).
Naiviris is next on my to try list, it is right next to my computer right now actually… 😉
I love naiviris-so now i have to sample Vohina. What the heck i’m gonna sample them all.Some people have said Naiiris is waxy smelling and i agree. I think thats what i like alot about it. Anyway thanks for the review.
Right, go for it, sample them all (they have a nice set!) I also really enjoyed Myrrhiade.
Aarrggghh, lavender, quickly running away. The combination sounds intriguing though and should we finally get some spring like weather I might be brave and seek this one out. So many perfumes to try, so little time.:-)
No, no, I bet you won’t dislike this one. The lavender is hardly noticeable as such, but is totally integrated and “new”.
Hehe I love that you hate that bottle! I quite like it, but then we know how our tastes diverge bottle wise, can we say Thierry Mugler?!
You make this sound like such a lovely floral, and I do like my florals, AND the Hutième Art line is quite interesting. So I have to try this really don’t i?
I think you might miss a bit of ooomph with Vohina, but I might be wrong. Although spraying is certainly recommended over dabbing for trying this one.
I am definitely a winter perfume person, I will be wrapped up warm in my cosy orientals until the last possible moment! And unfortunately I do agree with Andrea, I’m not sure I have ever found a lavender I could wear, although I was trying SL Gris Clair at the weekend and it made me wonder…
My winter/summer perfume preferences change at a much faster pace than the actual seasons, so I live through several fragrant winters per year. 😉
Lavender is not at all a dominant note here.
I know it’s very boring but yet again I was thinking the same thing. It’s been a particularly harsh winter in the UK too and I just decided to wear L’Heure Fougueuse tomorrow to bring forth those spring meadows.
Vohina sounds very joyful and spring-like. I definitely need to try more from this line. I admired the deceptively simple style of Myrrhiad a lot, though not enough to buy it.
Great choice! I should bring out Fougueuse too soon.
I am totally with you on the Huitième Art line (and especially Myrrhiad), I like them, they are intriguing, but I am not tempted to pick up a bottle. Thank Goodness the bottle itself is not much of a tempter either. 😉
In Germany, I used to reach for Guerlain Herba Fresca before I went running at this time each year. All that mint and hay kept my energy up. February and March are tough months because the winter just seems sooooo long, and everything is so slushy!
True! Grey and slushy. 😉
I like Herba Fresca, but I shiver when I think of it now, it might be a bit too fresh for the moment, I imagine it is perfect for running though. (Should do that too!!!)
PG has so many brillliant perfumes, one of my favorite perfumers — and he can do the mood of Spring so well. Lovely that Spring is being felt in your area too — such a harsh winter you’ve had.
Most of my PG choices are more fall/winter appropriate cozy ones, but he does spring just as well.
Today the sun is out for once… 🙂
brilliant/brillliant or even brilllliant, I think of PG that way so I guess it slipped out…please excuse.
I love the bottle! I haven’t actually seen one in person, but I love they way they photograph, that heavy ceramic is so luxe 🙂
It’s pretty much spring (today) in Austin, and you’ve inspired me to dig out a hay-laden PG inspiration: Bois Blonde!
I love the material, but the form makes me ask it to beam me up, Scotty! 😉
Hmmm, Bois Blonde – I love it. You smell lovely today.
Two weeks ago the weather was very very cold, but I decided I was fed up with cozy winter scents and wore spring-like iris fragrances each day: Hiris, Infusion d’iris, Homme de Coeur etc. I felt much better.
As far as Huitieme Art is concerned I did not have much luck with this line, I tried four or five scents, but did not like any of them. PG is not my fav. nose.
Perfume even makes the weather bearable. 🙂
I love PG’s work, but vastly prefer his regular line. The Huitieme Art line is interesting, but doesn’t really grab me.
I agree. Have you tried his newest line, Phaedon Paris?
Not yet. 😦
Woohoo! What a lovely photo of spring blossoms! I am feeling the same way and that’s just what the doctor ordered. Like you I also revert to warmer, ambery scents in the summer so it’s certainly a good idea to enjoy these airier beauties while we can. I must get a sample.
No better time for springy scents then when it is still grey and cold, so uplifting! 🙂
I tried this last April, and it was a thumbs up according to my notebook, but more than that I can’t rightly recall!
I am still happy to wear winter scents personally – I don’t start getting antsy about the long winter till the middle of March. Hold on though – that is only a few weeks away!
I’m going with my mood of the day and that is fickle enough, today I’m back at warm and cosy, but that might be because the sun is shining. 😉
this sounds lovely! In my notes I have Vivaldi’s Spring next to By Killian Love and tears..:)
Yes, I can see that too. 🙂
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Hi Birgit,I know this review is a few months old, but I just want to thank you and share with you that your beutiful review inspired me to buy a sample set and try Vohina,Lavender honey is one of my favorite treats,well,I loved the sample and today I got full bottle of Vohina in the post-the perfume is just as you described it-so feminine and tender -the only perfume my very picky other half has enjoyed so far-and I have quite a few 🙂
Hi Katyalil,
that makes me very happy! Vohina is very pretty, I’m glad you and your SO like it so much! Enjoy!
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