Apres l'Ondee(1906)

Created by Jacques Guerlain, Apres l'Ondee, After the Rain Shower, is built on bergamot and anise in the opening, a heart of violet, iris, hawthorn, and heliotrope, and a base of vanilla, musk, and benzoin, composed to evoke the delicate, slightly melancholy scent of a garden just after rain. The violet-iris-heliotrope heart, aided by the newly available synthetic ionones, produces a powdery, wistful softness that perfume historians frequently cite as one of the most emotionally evocative compositions of its era, quieter and more introspective than the grander orientals and florals released around the same time. It sits alongside Jicky and the later L'Heure Bleue as one of Jacques Guerlain's most acclaimed early-20th-century works, the three fragrances together often discussed as a loose trilogy exploring different facets of melancholic, powdery femininity. Hawthorn, a relatively unusual note in perfumery, contributes a slightly bitter-almond, faintly floral quality that reinforces the fragrance's wistful, rain-dampened character. More than a century later, it remains in Guerlain's catalog and is regularly cited by perfumers and critics as one of the most technically and emotionally accomplished fragrances of the Belle Epoque.