Après l'Ondée

Après l’Ondée is a fragrance composed by Jacques Guerlain and adored since 1906 for its rare floral delicacies, its instant emotion, its floral and airy grace. Après l’Ondée is considered one of the perfumed masterpieces of the house of Guerlain.

Après l’Ondée, or when Guerlain paints perfumes to better hold on to the moment

Little known today by the general public, Après l’Ondée is a reference in modern perfumery for all connoisseurs of this art. Yet this wonderful fragrance has no ambition other than to paint an olfactory picture of a country landscape bathed once more in sunlight, just after the rain, as Jacques Guerlain stated.

A simple dream but a grandiose achievement by a painter of perfumery who exercises his talents as much in the selection of choice natural raw materials as in the sublimation of synthetic notes still unprecedented in perfume, such as anisic aldehyde, heliotropin or ionones.

Thanks to Aimé Guerlain and his famous Jicky released a few years earlier, perfumery now dared to depict moods and stories for us. Sometimes it is a story of impossible love, sometimes simply the magic of a moment, which moreover would become the signature of the fragrances that Jacques Guerlain would later sign, such as l'Heure Bleue, another great perfume-emotion.

As Sylvaine Delacourte, Guerlain's nose, describes it: it is a fragrance [Après l’Ondée] entirely made of nuances, of delicacy, in communion with the elements of the earth, a fragrance that celebrates fine weather after the rain, a fragrance that makes one want to walk barefoot in the grass.

Après l’Ondée, a floral fragrance composed as an ode to nature

The original bottle of Après l’Ondée was inspired by the famous Marie-Antoinette's love for very rustic basket weaving and is thus shaped in glass with precious ornamentation. As for the clover-shaped cap, it simply symbolizes the wildflower. Today Après l’Ondée is presented in the traditional bee bottle of Guerlain's first great success, Eau de Cologne Impériale.

The top notes are fresh and tangy thanks to lemon and bergamot, scattered with the anisic and slightly exotic delicacy of neroli blossom. At the heart, violet, carnation and hawthorn offer their precious scents in contrast with the powdery notes of overdosed iris root. Iris, present in quantity, indeed leads one to think that Après l’Ondée would be an iris wet with dewdrops. The oregano accord (shared with the future Heure Bleue), enhanced with a touch of clove, extends the freshness and the enchanting scent of the lovely mimosa. Finally, this bucolic stroll ends in a sillage of heliotrope, vanilla and benzoin, recalling that the Guerlinade was later developed by this same perfumer.

Guerlain's creations each have their own story and sometimes great similarities. This is the case of Après l’Ondée and l’Heure Bleue, two landscape fragrances that draw their inspiration from the beauty of a moment and a photograph of nature. If Après l’Ondée were a painting, it would be a delicious and colorful watercolor of the future Heure Bleue.