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Addictive, juicy and unique. I can't put my finger on what I love so much about this. It should be harsh (my first spray in the store took me by surprise and I thought I'd hate it), but it quickly relaxes into a delicious, rich, fresh green breeze. I'm currently wearing it on a rainy autumn day and it's perfect. Any perfume that gives me several moments of joy through the day, as I catch it and remember I'm wearing it, is a win for me. I think it's quite polarising. I've had positive and negative (albeit politely negative) feedback, but the ones who questioned it prefer subtle skin scents, which this is not. The dirty civet note is perhaps where the magic lies, I'm not sure, but in any case every time I spray it I notice something different and wonderful, without it being too busy. Summer update: In hot weather this blossoms into a neroli fantasy, and I can smell all of the notes way more than in winter. It almost makes me wonder whether I ever smelled strong vetiver, or if it was in fact a combination of the many different things in the blend. In any case this remains a classic, and I'm glad I finally got to smell it thriving in the heat. Update: having tested countless other vetivers, most expensive, this is one of the only ones that doesn't turn sour after an hour.
For me, nothing beats vetiver perfume for rainy weather, and this and Encre Noir are the be all and end all for me. So many others have tried to better it, but not even Guerlain has succeeded with the new parfum version, which is a just pffff meh (yawn). This is an astonishing perfume, and even the newest formulation is an absolute masterpiece.
I used to own this. I quaffed a bottle years ago and never replaced it until recently when I acquired an 80's/90's mini. Wearing it today and I'm blown away, the top notes are still bright nothing short of superb. I can picture the segments of lemon, bergamot and grapefruit. This is mainly a citrus, oakmoss chypre in that classic mold with a kind of smooth, white floral heart, descending into a clean, dry vetiver note like the Nootkatone of grapefruit, more of a mild, Thai vetiver oil as apposed to a full bodied Haiti or Java, and one which doesn't have the typical smokiness or earth of vetiver, until the darker tones of the drydown that is and even then it's not really vetiver, more murky, vintage tones. I think it's amazing! A great fragrance. So it feels funny reviewing something I'm so familiar with and kinda took for granted in a way a fresh, functional, masculine fragrance. I think the journey opens your eyes, you come back around again to appreciating the little things, like Guerlain Vetiver.
