Behind the Rain Paul Schütze 2016

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8.0 / 10 56 Ratings

A popular perfume by Paul Schütze for women and men, released in 2016. The scent is resinous-woody. It is still in production.

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Main accords

Resinous

Woody

Spicy

Smoky

Green

Fragrance Notes

Black pepper

Coniferous woods

Frankincense Mastic

Mastic

Fennel

Grapefruit Vetiver

Vetiver

Moss

Patchouli

Linden blossom

Ratings

Scent

8.056 Ratings

Longevity

7.941 Ratings

Sillage

6.942 Ratings

Bottle

6.644 Ratings

Submitted by Michael, last update on 06/06/2025.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Coven

Reviews

4 in-depth fragrance descriptions

06/06/2025

ClaireV
731 Reviews

ClaireV

1

Wild 'freeform' bag of smells

Behind the Rain is one of those wild, freeform bag of ‘smells’ that the perfumer seems to have corralled in from his atmosphere – a liquid message from his world to ours, a bundling up of the collected smells of the woodshop and the painter’s studio. It is green-brown, vegetal, sharp, and more than slightly weird. But it is also deeply invigorating. Something in it electrifies me.

Behind the Rain is nominally a modern incense perfume à la Comme des Garcons. Yet from within the sleek lines of its minimalist architecture emanates the smells of Olde World Europe – oil lamps, liniment, centuries-old wood, glue bindings, turpentine, anise-scented toothpaste, and horsehair brushes idling in glasses of solvent. A dusty frankincense turns the polished wood and oily aromas of the workshop into a (homey) place of worship.

This might be an indoor scent entirely were it not for the wet rootiness of fennel, mastic, vetiver, and all manner of violently-uprooted vegetation sweeping gusts of air into closed rooms with their strange prairie outdoorsiness. The scent has one foot inside, one foot outside, ready to bolt in a Heathcliffian huff. Behind the Rain is imagined along the same lines as Marescialla by Santa Maria Novella and Olibanum by Profumum –more a summoning of the elements than a scent. Thank God perfumes like this still exist.

04/24/2024

Frankcrummit
7 Reviews

Frankcrummit

1

The Clearing of the Air

For my first Parfumo review, a little background may be helpful.

I am a Fragrantica refugee, sickened by its toxic politics and seeking a place where I can breathe in cleaner air, before turning my attention back to the world of perfume. I am also a self-confessed incense-worshipper, seeing that note as worthy of attention in itself, rather than as a mere accompaniment to a religious ceremony.

One of my first reactions to Behind the Rain, was to experience that clearing of the air I needed. The fragrance has an immediate impact: a strong, refreshing aroma, reminiscent of camphor and mint. A second reaction was to hastily rearrange the fragrance's categorisation: instead of the incense-led perfume I had anticipated, I am savouring something greener and herbaceous.

Paul Schütze conjures an Aegean island after the rain. That's the clearing of the air again: it's clean and fresh, but also laden with scents of uprooted wood and grass. I don't get fennel, but pine mostly and not the pine of a soapy foam bath, but it's as if my nose is pressed into freshly-split wood, where sap is oozing like blood from the wounding of a violent rainstorm.

On my blotter this slightly bitter, even medicinal green note persists for some time. It doesn't sweeten. It remains potent. This would be an ideal fragrance to wear on a summer morning during the exam season, when you need to keep your mind focussed, refreshing it with a deep inbreath of greenness. Others, though, might find this very sharpness off-putting.

The next test is to wear it on the skin and in polite company ...

... where I can report that, on the skin the impact of the initial sourness is less severe and the lingering woodsy/incense base note is more noticeable ... and very enjoyable.

08/17/2017

AromaX
33 Reviews

AromaX

Very helpful Review 2

Exploring an alien forest after the rain

Behind the rain by Paul Schütze

This fragrance can show me a different variety of the rain smell, the one I couldn't find a reference for inside my memory bank. It has brought me to a forest I couldn't recognize. Thick trunks covered with dark bark that was appearing almost black when wet. The air filled with an unfamiliar scent. Not that balsamic sweetness of pine trees like here in Netherlands, but rather a fresh and tart, a little bit camphorous smell of lentisque. The rain? I recognize its presence by wet freshness in the air filled with aromatic smell of herbs, earth and wet wood. The moment after the rain when the smells of the forest become so prominent. My imaginary landscape of this perfume is built up on a contrast between black, dark rusty brown and tender green.

Vetiver plays the leading role in this composition balancing on the contrast of dark woody notes and a fresh green aspect of the roots. The smell accentuates the sharp aspects of vetiver, but at the same time feels quite comfortable. The core is supported by the aromatic herbs and the freshness of mastique resin and frankincense. I keep getting a phantom of the tobacco leaves mixed with a touch of coffee. The illusion that adds a spirit of a true adventurer who enjoys a good pipe and drinks his coffee from an iron mug while taking a pauze before he starts to explore the alien woods again. It's more on the masculine side. The tobacco and coffee illusion seemed to be familiar to me reminding of Bell'Antonio by Hilde Soliani.

On the website of Paul Schütze this scent is described as "A glowing vetiver, enlivened with grapefruit and pepper with a heart of frankincense and patchouli." It refers to to an experience of a sudden rainstorm at an island on the Aegean sea: "as the storm ends, the warmth of the emerging sun on bruised foliage coaxes waves of resinous fragrance that wash down onto our place of shelter under a stand of conifer trees"

11/23/2016

8
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Stefanu155
5 Reviews

Stefanu155

Helpful Review 2

Thirsting Wood

Conifers.
On my way to the apartment, I always walk past such a hedge, occasionally brushing it with my hand. The hedge is ugly, a neighbor entrenched behind it like behind a living castle wall, but it leaves a fragrance on my fingers, which lingers for a short time and always opens up an inner landscape.
Paul does not call his perfume before or after, but "behind the rain" and this has to be interpreted purely as a poetic transformation and - one can no longer read the fragrance as a "reproduction" of a nature impression.
It is idle to divide the fragrance into its constituents. Like the other two of Schütze's scents, it has a characteristic, typical sound and wood always plays a role in them. But it starts tart fresh, conifers with citrus, vetiver with resin forged to one unit.
Without having read his memory of the Aegean before my first note, the following picture came to mind:
A mediterranean, completely parched forest, light and sweating from resin. The ground and the pine needles are just steaming from the rain, which refreshes briefly, but has hardly brought any cooling. The smells of the forest intensified and refreshed. Every now and then, the trees are dripping and the drops bring with them what they can take along on their way down the tree. You can still see the gray rain wall, which is already in the distance and gives back the sky its merciless blue. After a short time, the heat increases again, the resin of the bark struggles with the cracking stems on the ground for scent-sovereignty, crumbling needles and earth mix in. It gets dry again. Even drier.
For a long time, the memory of the short, violent shiver is in the air, before everything returns to the creaking dryness. Light stays for a long while. The wood (I also mean to smell cedar very clearly) is never very heavy. It is bright and light, but the heat leaves everything in motionlessness. Pan, I can see you.
This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful wood and resin scents I know so far and like the other two perfumes of the series, it is a serious, evolving fragrance. "Behind the Rain" does not calm down so quickly due to the by needle-like essential oils. Yes, even a moment of French brandy is in it, but refined, sublimated, freed from all medical remedies.
Behind the Rain appears natural, as if there were no purely chemical fragrances. And even if they should be there, they are completely at the service of this natural-looking composition. Those who know "Norne" know what a dark forest is. Who knows this fragrance, does not know it anymore.