“Orange Sanguine” is the scent of pure fresh blood oranges. Many of them, squeezed to juice a few moments before, or cut to be eaten as a dessert. The scent of oranges immediately triggers a happy feeling in people from northern countries. For us the smell stands for sun, lightness, summer, carefree holidays. Rarely do orange scents not make people smile. Blood oranges are more sour than normal oranges, they have more ‘body’, but they keep the sweetness that differentiates oranges of all other citrus fruits.
Whilst the scent notes on the sour side, like lemon or grapefruit, sometimes do have a remembrance to cleaning agents, orange blossoms do have a certain sultriness that needs an expert nose to embrace it with other fitting smells to make it more wearable. Orange blossom is a completely different matter to fresh orange fruit. Mandarins, neroli, pomelo and so on – they all have their special mark.
Orange fruit is the most approachable of all, but also the one least used. The reason can be that one either creates a straightforward orange perfume, as ‘nose’ and perfumer Ralf Schwieger did with “Orange Sanguine” or more complex perfumes, where sweet oranges are combined with vanilla or marzipan or coffee, as we have seen with Mona di Orio’s “Vanille” or will see in a later post with Perris Monte Carlo’s “Arancia di Sicilia”. The latter fragrances are works of art and of a subtle beauty, whilst “Orange Sanguine” is a statement of life.
To be honest, I smell blood oranges and nothing else. According to Atelier Cologne’s website, next to blood oranges there are at least geraniums and sandalwood involved. In an interview with Ralf Schwieger, he talked of pepper and probably other ingredients as well. Maybe all this is needed to create the pure blood orange juice scent that is the perfume, but those other scent notes are lost to my nose. And no offence meant – the mix sounds much less attractive than the pure blood oranges that I smell.
The colour of the fragrance is red-orange, no surprise there.
A fringe question would be if perfumes with a pure fruit scent are also a success in a country where that fruit exists in abundance. In Sicily, orange trees line the streets and are nothing special. Would anyone there buy a perfume like “Orange Sanguine” or those perfumes made for us in the north, who crave every ray of sunshine?
Atelier Cologne is famous for its relatively pure scents, often with a citrus note. During the last years they also created scents with a flowery focus. Have a look at their website, if you want to explore further. It is nicely designed, very well photographed and the new look of the bottles also adds to the attractiveness of the brand. Their perfumes are grouped around the positive emotions they are prone to trigger. In the case of “Orange Sanguine” the emotion is joy. Mission accomplished; joy is an immediate reaction to smelling the perfume.
The niche company Atelier Cologne was founded in 2009 by Sylvie Ganter und Christophe Cervasel in Paris, who involved other master perfumers in their endeavour. The success of the brand spoke for itself. Only 7 years later, in 2016, Atelier Cologne was bought by one of the biggest cosmetics companies, if not the biggest of them all: L’Oreal.
Apart from the revamping of the bottles and the website, a lot of the old character has been kept. The perfumes are marked as Cologne Absolue, indicating a much higher concentration of perfume oils than in normal Eau de Colognes. The durability of “Orange Sanguine” is indeed satisfactory.
Rald Schwieger, the creator of “Orange Sanguine” is of German origin. He decided to leave for the perfume metropole Grasse in France after finishing his studies in chemistry in Berlin, to combine is interest in science and art. He was successful and became a well-known nose, who is lucky enough to be named for quite a few of his creations. Whenever this is the case, the perfumer is named here in the blog as well. It must be tremendously frustrating to be responsible for a world-renowned perfume and not being able to proudly confirm it.
“Orange Sanguine” is a scent true to its name, giving an immediate southern summer feeling and joy to its wearer. A ray of sunlight to cheer us up.