Every year, just as the weather starts turning cold and grey, the first clementines start appearing in stores everywhere. It’s almost like Mother Nature realizes that cold and flu season is upon us and we’ll be needing that Vitamin C pronto. Although some consider it a spring/summer scent, Clèmentine California by Atelier Cologne is one that I enjoy wearing most during the autumn months.

Parisian fragrance house Atelier Cologne has been creating their sumptuous scents since 2010. As of this year they’ve managed to launched 36 upscale scents. Co-founders and life partners Sylvie Ganter and Christophe Cervasel spent years working together in luxury fragrance and beauty shops in New York and Paris before taking the plunge to launch their own niche line of fragrances. All of their colognes are based on citrus notes merged with herbal accords and were inspired by unique individual moments.

Clementine California is a sunny concoction built around the sweetness of perfectly ripe clementine and juniper berries and balanced by the green note of juniper and tangy mandarin. There’s a subtle spiciness that reveals itself in the notes of star anise, basil and a hint of Sichuan Pepper before settling into a warm base of Haitian vetiver, cypress and sandalwood.

If you’re looking for a fragrance that announces itself, this isn’t it. It’s fresh, light and playful and can be worn literally anywhere without fear of choking anyone nearby. It’s also not a terribly long-lasting scent and you’ll be lucky to get 3-4 hours before it vanishes. What  like to do to prolong its longevity is to spray it on an article of clothing I’m wearing or layer it with something else in my collection.

Does it remind me of the Golden State like, for example, a fragrance like California Reverie? Not much at all but I wasn’t really expecting it to.