Perfume Review: Rich Hippie Purple Haze

The lovely people at Rich Hippie must put some “illegal substances” in their creations, because their scents have the strangest effect on me…they fill me with inexplicable, irrational feeling of well-being. Now, to quote Douglas Adams, my capacity for happiness you could fit into a matchbox, without taking the matches out first, so whatever Rich Hippie is using must be pretty darn strong to change my not-so-sunny, Eeyore-ish disposition. I am not talking here about the complexity and the intricacy of their blends; these are rather simple scents after all. But they have a certain sumptuous, boozy joyfulness about them and they never fail to put a silly, big, contented grin on my face. Another thing I like about Rich Hippie fragrances is that, (perhaps deceptively) simple that they are, they also manage to be a little strange, a little off, a little not quite right, in the most pleasant way possible. Take Purple Haze. It starts on my skin with a smell of over-ripe apples and roses, the smell of fruits and flowers so ripe, they are already beginning to be marked by decay…the smell just one step away from rotten. Can this possibly be pleasant, you might ask, and the answer is, yes, somehow it is very enjoyable. Rich Hippie only lists Bulgarian, Moroccan and Turkish rose and Brazilian “citrus” as the notes of Purple Haze, but there is more to it than they are letting on (and I am not just talking about that “substance”). Right after the overripe floral fruitiness of the top notes subsides, the scent becomes fresher, drier even. It has earthiness that makes me think of vetiver, a cool, mint-like accord, quite a bit of lemon and perhaps a hint of pears. At this point of its development Purple Haze smells like a sophisticated lollipop. A lollipop for adults only, because it has a little extra somethin’ added to it to raise the spirits. The drydown features what I came to think of as Rich Hippie’s trademark vanilla, a velvety, curiously boozy and yet quite subtle vanilla, which I enjoy a lot. Incongruously but not unpleasantly, this fluffy vanillic drydown sports an herbal note not unlike dill… This strange and strangely enjoyable fragrance can be found at rich-hippie.com, $85.00 for 1/2oz, $185 for 2oz. The image is from rich-hippie.com