What a knack there is to that acting like a born aristocrat...

L'Artisan La Haie Fleurie du Hameau


How do you define elegance? In the musical Hello, Dolly!, two small town yokels, Cornelius and Barnaby, from Yonkers head to the big city of New York, New York and convince a successful milliner and her assistant that they are refined gentlemen worthy of a date. When the ladies begin to doubt, Cornelius and Barnaby sing a song called “Elegance” to convince them that the boys are true gentlemen. It’s a hilarious and sweet song, but it raises an interesting question: how do we define “elegance?”

Perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena created L'Artisan La Haie Fleurie du Hameau in 1982. L’Artisan describes La Haie Fleurie as follows:

At once sublimely refined and wonderfully wild, La Haie Fleurie is a perfume of classic proportions and timeless elegance. This ode to jasmine is an exuberant and graceful bouquet, a vivid dream of a garden in full bloom. Accentuated by the white floral notes of orange blossom, narcissus and ylang-ylang, the aroma of jasmine in La Haie Fleurie is amazingly realistic. Rich, sophisticated and exuberant, a true classic!

Notes: jasmine, orange blossom, narcissus, ylang-ylang

I love this! The jasmine is so lovely in its dryness and the orange blossom balances it so nicely. You only get little hints of the orange blossom, but it's there and it is wonderful. La Haie Fleurie is this dry, and yet somehow also oily, sophisticated yet accessible. It's the perfume equivalent of the perfectly formed 'sloppy' updo, the kind with lovely little pieces hanging all around the crown, one that can be worn to a sophisticated wedding, with a little black dress and bare feet as you walk on the beach at the end of a very long, very good date, or even to a high school prom. I even think it would make a nice scent for a man, honestly. It's just so...elegant.

I'm glad I got to try it. I was a little girl when it came out, and it's been out there waiting for me for over twenty years. I'm glad it's still out there. La Haie Fleurie is proof that there are wonderful things in the world to experience, and not all of them are new. Some are just waiting to be newly discovered.

You can buy La Haie Fleurie in 100ml for $135 from Luckyscent and a number of other locations.

“We got elegance.
If you ain't got elegance,
you can never ever carry it off...”
- “Elegance,” from Hello, Dolly!

Want more? Try...
~ A review from AromaX
~ A mention from Bois de Jasmine in a nice Spring Bouquet piece
~ A little bit of love from Perfume Posse

Images from The Blushing Hostess , Doug Fahl, and L’Artisan.