Lorenzo Villoresi recently became the first independent perfumer to win the Prix François Coty. In his honor, today I’m revisiting Yerbamate, a 2001 fragrance from the Fantasy Collection. Yerbamate was named for the South American plant that is brewed to make mate tea. The ad copy describes the scent as…
A boundless greenland touching the sky. The scent of grass, of new-mown hay, of countless herbs and flowers scattered in the fields, stirred by the wind and warmed by the sun. A lonely fire in the meadows, the quiet ritual of tea and mate a gentle veil of smoke, rising and lightly embracing.
Yerbamate includes green and citrus notes, tea, aromatic herbs, mate, mint, estragon, rosewood, ylang ylang, new-mown hay, lavender, galbanum, labdanum, tree-moss, patchouli, vetiver, aromatic woods and powdery & spice notes.
Yerbamate opens on citrus and fresh herbs, as advertised, and the first few minutes are sharp and bracing. As it calms, the grass and hay join in, along with bitter tomato leaf, and it begins to smell rather like a vegetable garden baking in the sun on a hot August day. Further on, it switches gears and leaves the fresh outdoors behind; in its place, we get sweet, resinous-ambery notes, along with hints of smoke and soap and a fair-to-middling dusting of powder.
Yerbamate is a dense fragrance, very much in keeping with Lorenzo Villoresi’s style — he has a few relatively light scents, but by and large, this is not a line you turn to for transparency. It is also a distinctive fragrance, and I have always admired it greatly without being able to decide if I actually like it. It strikes me as a fragrance that would take a certain kind of person to pull off, which is, I suppose, exactly the point of a niche scent, right? If you’ve tried Yerbamate, do comment.
Yerbamate is a unisex Eau de Toilette, and the lasting power is excellent. For buying information, see the listing for Lorenzo Villoresi under Perfume Houses.
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I haven't smelled this one, but I like your general idea. I'm kind of captivated by fragrances like that — I imagine them to be the perfect match for this one person (who generally isn't me) who then has a perfect signature scent. I've decided Chaos is mine (although I'm hardly alone in that!)
Yerbamate is a surprisingly fresh, complex juice that wafts out of the bottle bright, green and heady. Twenty minutes onto the skin it is dense, sweet, heavy, and agressive. The freshness is replaced by a sharp powderiness which clings and refuses to mellow into a bottom note. Villarosi is known for his dense perfumes, but I felt lost in a blizzard of suffocating powder at the drydown.
I bought Yerbamate because I fell in love with its herbal complexity, and thought it would be perfect for summer. Summer came, and Yerbamate…wasn't quite perfect. As SniffQ says, it refused to mellow. It stayed aggressively herbal and, if anything, seemed to get stronger the more I wore it. So now I'm wondering if the coldest weather will suit it better…waiting for February…sigh.
No, you're not, LOL…just saw that perfume bay is selling *samples* of Chaos for $10 or something.
That is how I felt the first time I tried it, and am wondering now if it was hot at the time. Today, it didn't strike me as oppressive at all, in fact, it was enjoyable to wear even if still not quite “me”, and it wasn't nearly as powdery as I remembered.
Ah, sorry then that you've already bought it. But as I said above, it didn't seem too heavy to me today. Dense, yes, but not really heavy, despite the fact that we are having fairly warm weather for November. Hope it will work better for you when it gets good & cold.
It is indeed strongly herbal. All of a sudden the before so easy to separate herbs blend together and I'm left with something refreshingly soapy accord. It reminds me of something, and although I always feel I've missunderstood a fragrance when I make the floor cleaner parallel, I can't help but to do it here. It smells very much like something like that which I've encountered before.
I know this scent has lots of fans because people used to post about it on MakeupAlley when I first came there…but apparently none of them are going to comment here today.
Thanks for the review, R! I am glad you mentioned the soapy quality of Yerbamate because I found all of the Villoresi scents to have that soapiness to them. I love them, Donna was my favorite of all of them.
Review of Donna coming up later today, P
Almost 3yrs
Hey Robin after reading reviews on MUA, I wonder if the base notes are too sweet? I’m looking for sth green, herbal, cool & wavering between this one & Guerlain Herba Fresca. Thank you in advance
The Guerlain is fresh & crisp, this one is not: it’s sweetish, and very dense. If you’re looking for crisp, fresh, green, you might also try the Miller et Bertaux Green, green, green.
Thank you dear. Suddenly I’m fed up with all the oriental for winter. I think I’ll get Yerbamate, haven’t had anything by LV yet.. A risky unsniffed purchase, it’s just sweetish right
The MeB Green sounds great, must check it out =)
Ack, can’t you get a sample first? That’s a very risky unsniffed choice.
I was too impatient (maybe partly because of your review
), guess I’ll get some vial from theperfumedcourt first.
Thanks a lot <3
Ah, Lorenzo Villoresi, such an exquisite line! And the prices are correct for such a high quality (real, not only advertised, like Bond no. 9 or MDCI) perfumery! My idole.
It is a great line.