The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
L'Envie arrived in 2010 as part of the Varens & Moi line, a collection that brought together a small set of scent moods under one banner. The name translates as The Desire, and the brief was straightforward: create something that lives inside the emotional space the collection maps out. Ulric de Varens, a French house with a broad catalogue of accessible fragrances, released it as one piece of a coordinated set rather than as a standalone launch. The collection itself groups several moods into a single, wearable line, and L'Envie sits within that frame, intended to be worn alongside its siblings or on its own, depending on what the day calls for.
What makes L'Envie worth lingering on is the licorice. Anise notes in feminine florals are rare enough to register as a choice rather than an accident, and here the licorice sits in the heart alongside rose and jasmine, not the base. That placement changes everything. Instead of arriving as a warm, powdery afterthought, the anise reads cool, almost green, and lends the rose a faintly medicinal edge before the florals fully open. The opening petitgrain and Amalfi lemon sharpen it further, giving the composition a bitter-citrus spine that the heart then seduces.
The evolution
The opening belongs to the petitgrain. It reads sharp, almost herbal, with the Amalfi lemon cutting through like a window thrown wide on a warm morning. That brightness doesn't last. Soon after, the rose and jasmine swell into the space, and the licorice arrives not as candy but as something cooler, anise-leaning, almost root-like, threading through the florals and giving them direction. As the composition settles, it finds its real register: the rose thins to a skin-warmed whisper, the jasmine fades, and the licorice mellows into a faint sweetness that sits somewhere between sugar and woodsmoke. The sandalwood and musk take over for the final stretch, and the drydown is soft, close, powdery, the kind of scent that lingers on a scarf the next morning.
Cultural impact
L'Envie occupies a particular space in the landscape of feminine florals: a rose-jasmine composition with a licorice heart that gives it a distinctive character. The anise note in the center sets it apart from the more conventional rose-centric fragrances, and the petitgrain-lemon opening adds a green, bitter edge that prevents the composition from feeling overly sweet. Wearers often comment on the balance between the cool, almost medicinal licorice and the warmer rose underneath, and the sandalwood-musk base gives the scent a soft, lasting finish that works across seasons.
