Magnificent (Loathesome) Vetiver

By Marla, the Nerd Girl Chrysopogon zizanioides is known to most perfumistas as Marvelous Vetiver. Or Stinky Vetiver. Depends on whether you love it (like I do), or loathe it (like a lot of other people do). It’s like patchouli-- a whiff of the ubiquitous khus elicits strong opinions! Vetiver used to have its own genus, but botanists decided it was actually close cousins to palmarosa and lemongrass, and it was chucked in with other “oil grass” -pogons. I hope its enjoying its new expanded family. The grassy leaves are pretty much odorless, it’s the roots that are so fragrant (or smelly). They are distilled into medicines and perfumes, woven into fragrant mats and fans that became so popular during the Moghul Empire and Raj in India, and bundled into linen chests here in the Southern US to keep away fungi and buggles. You can even flavor your summer ice water with the roots! The top half, the grass, grows up to 8 feet tall. I’m growing some experimentally here on my sand dune. We’ve got big trouble with storm tide erosion and high winds and we need some special plants to buffer our living zone. Vetiver is being used on the islands to our east as just such a buffer, and it’s working out well. And its deep roots cleanse soils of various pollutants, too. My little pot of about 10 plants is nearly 2 feet high now. Alberto of Agriflora Tropicals, in Puerto Rico, specializes in vetiver, and he’s been a wealth of information on the lovely khus. He’s happy to ship some to anyone who wants to grow it themselves. (Disclosure—I get no commission from Alberto, I’m just a happy customer.) My scent library contains several varieties of vetiver, some fractions and synthetics. They are: 1. Rhus Khus- traditional Indian attar, vetiver co-distilled with sandalwood. The strongest vetiver of the bunch! So strong it’s almost horse-radishy…. 2. Bourbon vetiver- from Reunion Island. Supposedly the finest type, but I prefer the Sri Lankan. 3. Sri Lankan organic vetiver- softer and sweeter, with almost nutlike nuances. 4. Haitian vetiver- earthy and rooty with hints of fruit, the most grounding of the group. Rough and rugged! 5. Vetiverol- there are actually several of these patented out there with varying profiles. It’s usually considered a fraction of actual vetiver, but there’s controvery over whether it can be called a natural ingredient or not. To my nose, it has the simplest, and nuttiest profile of the group. 6. Vetiveryl acetate- a synthetic, a beloved aromachemical of Escentric Molecules (03 is allegedly composed of only this one.) Lighter and airier than the naturals. There are many other varieties out there, and I’m always on the lookout to add more! My favorite vetiver scents are an Indian attar of tuberose/vetiver, Lalique’s Encre Noir (the guy’s version), and the old standby, Guerlain’s Vetiver. Serge Lutens also makes a lovely vetiver potion, and Hove’ Parfumeur in New Orleans has a whole line of the softer, southern US type of vetiver- they even sell the root bundles for your linen chests. They won’t tell me what variety of vetiver they are using, but I suspect it’s a proprietary blend…. What are your favorite vetiver perfumes, types of vetiver, or fractions/synthetics? And if you’re in Zones 8-10, have you ever thought of growing it yourself??

Xerjoff Modoc Perfume Review

By Marina After I encountered Xerjoff's iris fragrance, Irisss, I decided that, along with Iris Silver Mist, it might be the most beautiful iris scent out there. Modoc gives Irisss run for its money. It is not a rival for Iris Silver Mist, because, to me, they come from two different iris "families". The family inhabited by Irisss, Modoc and scents like Delrae Mythique, Attrape-Coeur and Iris Poudre is "buttery" or "velvety" iris. The family of Iris Silver Mist, Hiris, Iris Pallida and Infusion d'Iris is "drier" and "silky". The first group speaks in hushed, husky tones, the second sings like silver bells. The "velvety" irises are, to me, what Luxury and Expensive smell like. The "silky" ones are what elves wear in Rivendale... Generally speaking, the velvety group is stylized, "perfumey", while the silky ones strike me as more "realistic". There are also woody irises, earthy and a couple of other types, but those are sub-groups. As you can see, I am ever so "scientific" about my irises. On that note, I am going to evaluate Modoc according to the criteria I came up with before: 1. How strongly/recognizably orrisy does it smell? - Very. Modoc is built on the interplay of two rooty ingredients, iris and vetiver, with their harmonious interaction taking place on the plush background of amber and vanilla. It is the latter two accords that keep the rootiness/earthiness of the  star notes to a minimum, making them instead creamy, slightly powdery and extremely luxurious. Nothing wild about either vetiver or iris here, both are tres recherche. Vanilla, musk and amber highlight the buttery quality of orris. In comparison, vetiver is rather subdued, although it certainly contributes a certain "nutty" verdancy to the blend, keeping the opulent creaminess somewhat in check. 2. Is it more iris-orrisy or violet-orrisy? - Definitely iris-orrisy and should delight iris purists. 3. Is it woody or floral? - Leaning towards woody, but, again, not in any sort of "found in nature" manner. 4. Is it powdery? - Moderately so. Just enough to emphasize the fact that it is a Pefume, not a Smell, an elegantly executed interpretation of an iris, not a photographic image. 5. How expensive does it smell? - Not just profanely, but really offensively expensive. As it should, considering its cost. Conclusion: Sublime. Rich. Quite original, due to the interesting interaction between orris and vetiver. There is something in its golden orrisiness that vaguely remindes me of Attrape-Coeur. And since, inexplicably and inexcusably, Guerlain discontinued the latter, Modoc might possibly become a welcome if costly consolation for the fans like me. I also have to mention that although Modoc is a part of the masculine Shooting Stars collection, there is nothing non-feminine about it. Despite being of the conviction that everything is unisex, I'd even venture to say that Modoc is for ladies if not only then mostly. Available at Luckyscent, $295.00-$470.00, depending on the fanciness of the bottle. Image source, Elle Canada.

Sweet Tea: L'Artisan Coeur de Vetiver Sacre

By Tom Stopping into Barneys to waste some quality time this past Sunday I was asked if I would like to try a new Vetiver by L'Artisan. This is of course akin to asking me if I would like to try a new flavor of Ketel One or Sprinkles Cupcakes. The answer will be "yes, a large please". There are of course many vetivers classic ones, modern ones and even post-modern ones. L'Artisan's newest take on it dances between candied and cool and warm and smoky. On me it starts with a cool, sparkly fruity-berry accord, quickly becoming green vetiver. Almost immediately bergamot and black tea join in making this somewhat like a more delicate version of Annick Goutal's late and much lamented Eau de Fier. The final heat is provided by black pepper, a warm, discernible vanilla and finally a sensual skin musk. I think I might have found my fall scent... Coeur de Vetiver is $95 for 50ML or $135 for 100ML at Barneys exclusively for the rest of the year, then at the usual suspects. I received my sample at the source.

Cheeky: Fat Electrician by Etat Libre d'Orange

By Tom I have to admit that Etat Libre is a house that has always come this close to making me want to purchase, but somehow never quite got there. Tom of Finland came close, and Rien came closer, while one still makes me slightly queasy. Fat Electrician has certainly come the closest yet. I love vetiver in almost all its forms: I have and wear Malle, Lutens, Guerlain and Tauer's and love several others I've tried. Fat Electrician starts with the vetiver ripped from the ground screaming: maybe ripped from the asphalt. There's a tarry smokiness to the opening that's in-you-face and jarring, in a good way. What's even more jarring is the drydown: vanilla and myrrh make it soft and only a little earthy and a little dirty. I'm not quite sure what this has to do with the idea of workers and butt-crack and not at all sure that I want to investigate Etat's website to find their reasoning. I'll just enjoy the scent thanks.. $69 for 50ML at Henri Bendel and LuckyScent (where I asked for and received my small sample)

Perfume Review: Lalique Encre Noir

Dragging behind the whole enlightened perfumanity, I finally tried Lalique's fairly recent masculine release, Encre Noir. (Many thanks to Robin for sharing this marvel with me!) So good is this deceptively simple, elegantly earthy creation, that it might just revive my passion for vetiver. When I say that it is deceptively simple, I mean that it appears relatively straightforward: vetiver and more vetiver. The supporting notes (cypress, musk, grapefruit, licorice) are wonderfully discreet. And yet, the fragrance constantly changes ...but "spatially" rather than "temporally". In other words, I don't perceive any drastic transformations from top to middle to base notes, however, strangely, the scent smells different when inhaled very closely (nose-to-wrist), from a short distance and as "sillage" wafting subtly with one's movements. Up close, it is rooty-green, pungent, although not sharp, and possessing the quality I love so much about vetiver- an enjoyable sourness of sorts, not unlike that of sorrel. From a short distance - hand snatched away from nose, the molecules hanging for a millisecond suspended in the air between nose and hand - it smells like dirt. Clean dirt, to be oxymoronic. There is nothing animalic and sensual about the earthiness of Encre Noir. The scent is smooth white stones on dry gray earth... pristine, virginal almost-sterility of primeval landscape. The sillage has a sublimely elegant leathery undertone, an unexpected touch of chic urbanity in this strangely "natural" blend. The leathery undertone aside, Encre Noir makes me feel, to quote Neruda, as if "I am this naked mineral: echo of underneath." The perfume is nothing short of exquisite and absolutely unisex. I recommend it highly to those who, like me, were enamored with the "mineral" aspect of Terre d'Hermes and Sel de Vetiver and were looking for a vetiver scent that would be even more like a "substance that is neither vegetable nor animal". Encre Noir is available at Aedes, $100.00 for 3.3oz. The painting, Man with Stones, is by Steven Kenny, stevenkenny.com.

Perfume Review: Guerlain Djedi

Miracles do happen. One gloomy Monday you go to get your unexciting post and there is a surprise package in your mailbox. In the package is a sample of a fragrance so rare and so expensive, you thought you would never get to try it. When you crack open the vial, your hands tremble ever so slightly. You sniff reverently, gingerly…You have heard it was a “tremendous animalic vetiver” (Luca Turin), “the driest perfume of all time” (Roja Dove)… It smells dark and mysterious. Scent of something or someone eternal, complex, incomprehensible, of a twilight place beyond good and evil. Thus smelled Zarathustra. It is not clear from the information I was able to find on the web, when exactly Djedi was created. Some sources say, in 1905, some in 1926, some in 1927. If one article is to be believed, Djedi was re-launched in 1996 to celebrate its 70th anniversary, so perhaps 1926 was indeed the year of the first release. Originally created by Jacques Guerlain, the perfume’s list of notes supposedly includes rose, vetiver, musk, oakmoss, leather, civet and patchouli. As for the name, it might have been named after a mythical Egyptian magician Djedi who could bring the dead back to life. (More information and / or corrections are very welcome.) The first whiff of Djedi is wondrously pungent. It is green and earthy, like some magical root dug up from the jet-black soil in a sinister forest. As the scent evolves, the vetiver note remains as green and peppery as it was in the beginning, and the patchouli note grows stronger. I do not smell any rose here and practically no leather. The musk is very subdued as well, making the patchouli note almost solely responsible for the animalic quality of Djedi. The drydown is herbal and dry, although on my skin, it is not nearly as dry as Roja Dove suggests; there is a certain "natural", very subtle sweetness here, the way juice squeezed from a wild, green plant might be sweet. At this point Djedi smells bizarrely like sorrel borscht my mother tried to force me to eat when I was a child (it smelled much better than it tasted). All in all, Djedi is a rather austere, elegant, supremely blended composition that smells quite unlike any other Guerlain I have ever tried. While testing it, I kept catching myself thinking rather irrationally that it was a Lutens scent. Djedi has that Lutenesque dark strangeness about it; it sucks the wearer into its dusky enchanted world the way the most interesting Lutens scents do. As far as I understand, when Djedi was re-released in 1996, only 1000 bottles were to be sold, each a stunning, numbered Lalique creation. Right now Djedi is sometimes auctioned on eBay; most recently a bottle was sold for over $500.00. Many, many thanks to the wonderfully generous Judith for this incredible surprise. *The photo of the bottle is from Pavesiocourmayeur.com. The image, Dark Forest by John Skwiot, is from Galleryplanb.com.

Perfume Review: Hermes Terre d'Hermes

Experience taught me that it is better not to have high hopes for new perfume releases, no matter how exciting their descriptions. I also know the danger of trying to foresee (foresmell?) the way an upcoming fragrance would actually smell. In reality, many new launches either can’t live up to one’s high expectations or are completely different from what one envisaged them to be. Terre d’Hermes turned out to be an exception to this Rule of Low Expectations in that it was as good as I hoped it would be and smelled more or less exactly as I imagined it would smell. I must add that, although marketed by Hermes as a masculine scent, Terre d’Hermes is most decidedly and delightfully unisex. Described as a “vegetable and mineral” fragrance, “made without animal by-products or musk”, Terre d’Hermes has a simple, uncluttered composition. On my skin all notes are apparent at once and stay that way from start to finish, and yet this lack of development does not make the scent seem uninteresting. I must also add that when I say “all notes”, I really mean the four that are most evident on my skin: grapefruit, vetiver, pepper and what I call an “earth” accord. The latter is a raw, rooty combination of cedar, benzoin and patchouli, but the blend is so smooth, it is hard to tell where the cedar ends and the patchouli begins; I perceive this combination as a single note evoking moist, clean, black soil and grey rounded stones that are cool to the touch. I have never been a big fan of grapefruit, especially in combination with pepper, but here it somehow works absolutely wonderfully. Grapefruit, vetiver and pepper balance and compliment each other, they are sparkly, spicy, they have a kick, they have a bite and yet they are also remarkably calm and serene. Chandler Burr assessed Terre d’Hermes perfectly when he called it “quietly remarkable”. The fragrance is simple and elegant, light yet somehow satisfyingly “substantial” all at the same time. Terre d’Hermes is the proof that, when done right, with subtlety and style, in other words, when done by Jean-Claude Ellena, less definitely becomes more. Says Pablo Neruda: “When I lived among the roots, They pleased me more than flowers did, And when I spoke to a stone, It rang like a bell.” Terre d’Hermes is available at Hermes.com, $90.00 for 3.3oz. *The first image is from Hermes.com, the second from istockphoto.com. *** An afterthought and further proof of the wonderfullness of Terre d'Hermes: seldom do we all agree so much on a perfume; for other very positive reviews of this scent, please read Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This, Peppermint Patty and Scentzilla.

Coffee Scents: A Story with a Happy Ending

Contender No. 1. Hippie Latte: Comme des Garcons Series 7: Sweet – Wood Coffee Notes: cardamom, liquorice, chinese ginger, almond, coffee essence, wood, indonesian patchouli, vanilla. Wood Coffee was the first coffee scent I tried, and, it being Comme des Garcons, I expected something striking. Alas, I was disappointed. I did not encounter much wood, and even though there was plenty of coffee, it was not the coffee of the Turkish proverb, "black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." Rather, Wood Coffee is a diluted, cold latte and I don't mean intentionally cold as in some fancy Starbucks creation, but rather as in “forgotten in a mug and gone cold and stale”. To make the matters worse, in the drydown, patchouli reared its ugly head demoting Wood Coffee from the status of unremarkable to almost unwearable. Contender No. 2. Politically Correct: Jo Malone – Black Vetyver Café Notes: coffee, vetiver, temple incense and sequoia. Black Vetyver Café was allegedly born from Jo Malone’s passion to create the perfect coffee note. I have a passion to find a perfect coffee scent, so there seemed to be a great chance that I would love this. And I don’t dislike it, but…as Ernest Hemingway said, “But did thee feel the earth move?” I did not. This is a big improvement on the stale, cold, patchouli leaden Wood Coffe. However, if, like me, you a crave a rich, dark, sensual coffee scent, this is not it. Black Vetyver cafe is a very neutral fragrance, civilized, elegant, appropriate anywhere...It is very wearable and actually even full-bottle worthy for me, but…this is not It. Contender No. 3. “The Spirit of the Unexpected”: Bond No 9 – New Haarlem Notes: coffee, vanilla, patchouli. How I love the beginning of this fragrance. It is dark, sexy, sweet and very recognizably “coffee”. Very hip, very sophisticated, and, at that point, very wearable. Unfortunately, that is not where the story ends. Memories evoked by scents can be a wonderful thing and enhance one’s love for a new fragrance; they also can be a curse. In this case it is not a bad memory that New Haarlem brings to mind, it is simply that, sometime during the drydown, the scent becomes, to my nose, a fragrance a person from my past used to wear, and I simply cannot get over that and enjoy New Haarlem. I feel that I am wearing another person’s skin so to say. The scent it reminded me of is Route 66, created in 1995 by Coty, which, for those unfamiliar with it, is a tobacco-woody-ambery fragrance. Damn be the tricks of olfactory memory. Memories aside, a masculine cologne drydown is simply not among the characteristic a coffee scent has to possess, in order to come close to the ideal I have in mind. Contender No. 4. Holy Grail Alert! Dawn Spencer Hurwitz – Coffee Absolut Notes: coffee absolute. Wowza! My search for a perfect coffee scent ends here (for now, that is, since a perfumista's job is never done). It is hard to imagine that there can be anything more coffee-like, apart from the coffee itself. From the dark colour of the liquid to the incredible scent, this is it, black, strong and sweet. I don’t know how she did it, the notes on her site don't disclose much, but DSH somehow created that elusive ideal coffee scent I was looking for. Wood Coffee? Purleeze! Black Vetyver Café? Laughable. New Haarlem? Sorry, not even close. A side note for other incorrigible layerers out there. I accidentally layered Coffee Absolut with Bourbon French Romanov (a sweet rose scent) and the result is incredible, I have a feeling this DSH creation would bring a certain stunning dark undertone to many a scent. Know of more coffee scents? Please send your recommendations!