Jo Malone Black Vetyver Café: Perfume Review

By Beth The other day I had a completely delightful experience when my darling “second son” Zach and I went shopping for fragrance! Zach is my son Alex’s closest friend and they are as different as can be, but they share a bond that goes back at least 16 of my sons 21 years. When I say that they are different, I really mean it as they are truly like night and day. Zach is a uber conservative economics student living in Baltimore and attending Johns Hopkins and Alex is a totally liberal environmentalist living in Southern California whose lifelong dream is to go to the Scripps School of Oceanography and work with Paul Watson on a Sea Shepherd mission afterwards having an eco pirate tattoo emblazoned on his forearm . They love each other passionately and argue incessantly about everything . To site examples, my son’s idea of a shopping excursion is a quick trip to the Gap with a short stop at Next, for some fashionable hemp tennis topsiders while Zach adores Brooks Brothers and has his shirts custom made in Beijing. Alex’s idea of a wonderful vacation is 2 months of Scuba diving in Central America with rarely a shower and only then with Dr. Bronner’s Almond soap. Zach loves a more formal excursion, of course preferring Paris and Prague and only staying in hotels that offer incredible cuisine. Alex is mostly vegetarian whose favorite gourmet meal is Chipotle, whom he will support because everything they use “is free range mother!” He loves my cooking but has no tolerance for long-winded foodie conversation as it takes to much time away from Ultimate Frisbee! Alex wears Burberry’s London, a fragrance that smells absolutely wonderful on him (a bit like a balsam forest) but as of last week Zach hadn’t found a fragrance that suited his disarmingly metrosexual attitude. Alex and his father left last Thursday to embark on a 4 day journey across 8 states with all of our belongings in a large truck , leaving me with a lot of extra time on my hands. I called Zach to see if he’d like to spend a day engaging in some mindless after holiday sale shopping. Of course he said yes and after a delicious breakfast of Eggs Benedict and some wonderful conversation we found our way to the mall. Let me tell you, if you really want to have some fun take a favorite 19 year male fragrance shopping! We started at Sephora , sniffing and laughing and he actually took the process very seriously. We tripped through the Chanel’s, the Givenchy’s and the Guerlain’s. We sprayed the Hermes, tried the Aveda’s (way too organic for him!) but sadly nothing tripped his fancy. We went to Nordstroms, dallied through Dillards and eventually ended up at Saks 5th Avenue. I walked over to the Jo Malone counter to get a whiff of my favorite French Lime Blossom, which is what I adore wearing in Cleveland when the temperature dips below 20 degrees and suddenly it happened. Zach was intrigued. At first I thought that it was the array of gorgeous bottles beckoning with scent sticks but upon further inspection it was the darling blonde sales associate who had caught his eye. She came over to greet us with a sweet smile and inquired as to our reason for being there. I told her that we’d come on a mission, to find Zach a scent that he’d love to wear at school. From then on it was easy. She proffered him with scent strips, stood very close to him and discussed each fragrance with him looking soulfully into his eyes. Nothing was working until she picked up the Black Vetyver Café. With a flourish, she sprayed some on his wrist, gently reached for the aforementioned wrist , and blew lustfully upon it practically fluttering her eyelashes on his skin. Did I mention that Zach really is quite cute. It was absolutely hysterical watching my very sophisticated son practically falling onto his knees with pleasure. “Hmmm, she proclaimed, this is incredible “ and it was. The combination of coffee, black vetiver and temple incense suited him perfectly and blended beautifully with his skin scent leaving a note of burn’t caramel along with the spice. I bought it for him, feeling very pleased that we’d accomplished what I’d thought might be a difficult feat. He loves it and I must admit that it hadn’t been a scent that had done much for me in the past. I guess that I’ll never truly know if it was the cologne that beguiled or the lovely winsome creature that was kissing his wrist, a perfectly hysterical conclusion to an absolutely fabulous day ! Like all Jo Malone fragrances Black Vetyver Café’ can be layered. Mixed with the Wild Fig and Cassis , it is wonderful, but I’ve enjoyed layering it on my husband with a simple Kiehls 1921 musk which smells absolutely decadent on him, but trust me, the little wrist trick helps too:)