In the world of PerfumeTok, Delina went viral with 105.6 million posts for its fruity floral fragrance that wraps skin in rose, rhubarb, and vanilla. Parfums de Marly’s Palatine, the brand’s latest perfume, is poised to become just as Internet famous thanks to clever chemistry and a backstory that will make you smile with every spritz.
As expected, its elaborate, tasseled glass bottle with bejeweled crystal lid gives a nod to the lavishness of an 18th century French chateau. But in the same way that Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette mixes period pieces with new wave music from the ’70s and ’80s, Palatine takes an old-school raw perfume ingredient and gives it a modern lease of life.
Let me explain. In perfumery, violet petals have traditionally been used to lend a certain type of frilly sweetness to a scent. It earned perfumes that go heavy on violet a reputation for being dowdy, fussy, and, above all, old-fashioned.
But Palatine is different. The actual smell of violet petals isn’t the result of plucking the flower to extract the fragrance. Instead, breakthrough technology was used, where the flower’s scent is released under a glass dome and the molecules in the air are measured.
This allowed Julien Sprecher, founder and artistic director of Parfums de Marly, to move the scent away from smelling like your grandmother’s wardrobe or to be too much like a skin scent. Instead, the violet petals have been re-interpreted to smell slightly sweet but also tart, so that they have this really edible, binge-worthy appeal.
Then, in an interesting feminist plot twist, Parfums de Marly’s Palatine took a traditionally masculine note in colognes—lavandin—and dropped it into the heart of this overtly feminine perfume to really amplify the sharp tang of these violet petals.
Pretty clever, no? It’s also fitting as the perfume’s namesake was Elizabeth Charlotte of Bavaria, a.k.a Princess Palatine, who was renowned for her free spirit and independence in Chateau de Marly’s court, a rarity for a woman in the 17th century.
“To celebrate that audacity, I wanted to revisit the violet petal, a note that tends to be perceived as traditional, and make it the heroine of a composition that is, on the contrary, quite contemporary and unexpected,” says Julien.
What does Parfums de Marly’s Palatine smell like?
I’m not typically a floral perfume lover but there’s just something about Palatine that draws me in for a second, third…and fourth sniff. I think the biggest reason for this, is that it doesn’t lean into classic jasmine, rose, or lily.
Palatine still has the addictive sweetness that is catnip for Parfum de Marly lovers, so I feel Delina fans will also be won over by it. It has plenty of the playful, feminine energy that the brand is known for, too, but it’s not a sickly, saccharine scent—nor does it smell dated.
A blend of mandarin, bergamot, pear, and lavandin is just fresh enough to take the edge off the sweetness of the violet. While the addition of sandalwood, patchouli, musk, and vanilla adds an unexpected warmth to the scent that lingers for hours. Having tested this fragrance for a month, in different weather conditions, I can attest to that.
