Vianne's Confession - Our Shop

Vianne’s Confession, the fragrance to go with Joanne Harris’s new novel, Vianne, is available now.

A story in scent of the art and magic of chocolate, created with Joanne Harris at the 4160Tuesdays workshop. Vianne’s Confession blends Mediterranean sea salt and unsweetened cacao with incense, tomato leaf and rose, hot sun, cool, dark church interiors and cobblestone alleyways in the rain. Strange and enchanting.

We are making only 1000 x 30ml  bottles of Vianne's Confession, a fragrance created with Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, to coincide with the release of her new novel, Vianne.

It's the prequel to Chocolat and describes Vianne Rocher's return to France, how she learns to cook and discovers her talent for creating magical chocolates.

Joanne spent a day at our studio discovering obscure and wonderful perfumery materials, and at the end, Sarah created the first two versions. Joanne described our favourite as like a young woman after a swim in the sea taking refuge from the heat in the cathedral.

From the aromas Joanne evokes in the novel, we took unsweetened cacao, rose, geranium, tomato leaf, oakmoss, Clearwood, cypriol, smoky labdanum, attar mitti, and light and dark musks. The aroma evokes salty skin and deep woody incense, sunshine, rain and earth.

It was named Best in Show by Jo Fairley, co-founder of Beauty Bible and The Perfume Society, who sniffed it for the first time at the Barnes Fragrance Fair. You can read what she said about it here - Jo's Scent Notes: 4160 Tuesdays Vianne's Confession.

This is what Joanne Harris wrote on her website about the experience:

"You all know how I feel about scent.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I went to see perfumer Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays to help create a bespoke scent to illustrate the new book. I had a wonderful time in Sarah’s lab, trying different scents and raw materials, talking about the background to the book; the location (Marseille in late summer and autumn) and the pictures I wanted the scent to paint. The result is called VIANNE’S CONFESSION: part chocolaterie, part confessional, with all the darkness and light of the Old Quarter of Marseille, with its steep little cobbled streets, its planters of geraniums, and the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, sheltering the city."

“I’ve just received my order and it’s utterly stunning.  I think I’m going to need more of this so I never run out!! Thank you so much” - Corinne Warne

“I got mine yesterday - I love it so much I’ve just gone and bought another one!” - Kath McCarron Humphrey