Perfume Review: Diptyque Eau de Lierre

The smell of ivy is dear to the hearts of the founders of Diptyque. It reminds Yves Coueslant of his house in Normandy, with its view of the sea and the lavish garden with ivy creeping over a wall neat the pond. For Christiane Gautrot, the scent is full of memories of the countryside around Paris and of her family house, La Ferté-Alais, “with its old walls overgrown with ivy running around the garden all the way down to the small canal”. (From diptyque.tm.fr) Several years ago, Diptyque produced ivy scented candle, and the new Diptyque Eau de Toilette, Eau de Lierre is also centered around ivy. For a scent based on a note so special for the creators of Diptyque, Eau de Lierre is disappointingly rather ordinary. Sure, it is a pleasantly sharp, slightly bitter green fragrance, but it is rather “weak”, oomph-less and “pale”. Its greenness is just generalized greenness of non-specific trees and leaves. It does not evoke a luxurious, shadowy garden with ivy creeping over the walls nor does it make me think of sunlit, brightly green countryside of a happy childhood. The fragrance doesn’t have enough forcefulness, enough “soul” to evoke anything in particular. It starts with an unexciting verdant note that may be or may not be ivy leaves; despite the fact that the list of notes promises pepper and geranium, the spiciness of one and the bright sharpness of the other are lacking to my nose. After staying agreeably “green” on my skin and not changing much for the better or for the worse, Eau de Lierre dissipates into an even more boring and borderline-aquatic drydown. The Diptyque line of fragrances boast some wonderfully unique, truly interesting scents like Virgilio, L’Ombre Dans L’Eau, Tam Dao, Philosykos, to name a few; unfortunately Eau de Lierre is not nearly as remarkable. Eau de Lierre is available at Aedes, $60.00 for 1.7oz * The image is from diptyque.tm.fr.