L’Artisan Thé Pour Un Été

It really takes some seriously hot weather to snap me into summer scent mode. The past week we’ve had a massive heat wave and I finally succumbed to wearing a few of my favorite summer scents.

Bear these facts in mind, I generally dislike jasmine and I frequently disparage L’Artisan for their complete lack of longevity and sillage. Aside from a few, namely Timbuktu, Iris Pallida and Premier Figuer Extreme, I’m awfully annoyed by the fleeting nature of most L’Artisans. My all-time favorite L’Artisan, Mimosa Pour Moi, is also fleeting but I adore the scent so much I just put up with it by bathing in it.

Thé Pour Un Été is one of the most perfect summer perfumes, period. It is fresh, airy and sublime. Here’s the overall gist of Thé Pour Un Été; imagine a glass of chilled jasmine tea, with lemon and a sprig of mint. I don’t even like jasmine but the jasmine in Thé Pour Un Été is so perfectly orchestrated that I simply adore it. The jasmine is tempered by the green/herbal notes, keeping it crisp rather than indolic and the tea note gives it just a little more character than a plain floral fragrance. For me, the ratio is like this: 50% crisp jasmine, 25% tea, 25% lemon/green.

Olivia Giacobetti created Thé Pour Un Été in 1995. I’ve begun to notice that I’m a big fan of Giacobetti, particularly for warm weather fragrances. Giacobetti also created some of my other summer favorites, such as Diptyque Philosykos, Hermes Hiris, Frederic Malle En Passant, L’Artisan Premier Figuer and Parfum D’Orsay Tilleul. Giacobetti’s style seems to involve delicacy, naturalism and a little surprise factor. In Hiris, Giacobetti added a carrot note; in En Passat, she used a doughy-bread note; in Premier Figeur, she included green leaves and coconut milk; and in Philosykos she put the entire fig grove, bark, leaves, fruit and all, in the bottle. In other words, Giacobetti ensures that her fragrances are gorgeously natural, never an artificial or synthetic smelling note, but always a little shock factor, to keep things interesting.

L’Artisan Thé Pour Un Été is divine. While the idea of chilled jasmine tea with lemon might seem overly simplistic, the aroma itself is too jarringly beautiful to disregard. Thé Pour Un Été is an olfactory antidote for a hot summer day, it lifts my spirit and keeps me sniffing my wrists all day. As mentioned above, L’Artisan drives me crazy with their lack of tenacity, but Thé Pour Un Été’s longevity is better than most of their fragrances, it still isn’t great, but it sticks around for about 3-4 hours on me. Like Mimosa Pour Moi, I like this scent so much, I just re-apply.

Rating: 5 stars
Sillage: a little
Longevity: below average but not terrible, about 3-4 hours on me