My first niche perfume purchase was a bottle of Etro Vetiver Eau de Cologne way back in 1990. I bought Vetiver, along with some wonderful Etro soaps, at Etro’s Beverly Hills boutique, and I became an instant Etro fragrance fan. Over the years, I’ve owned several bottles of Etro Vetiver, Sandalo and Magot; I’ve also enjoyed bottles of Messe de Minuit (the fragrance that helped launch the Incense Revolution in perfumery) and Patchouly. In the early Nineties, Etro’s perfumes smelled exciting, rich and different to my baby “department store-trained” nose and a new, expensive, niche perfume passion was born. Etro led to Comptoir Sud Pacifique, which led to Jean-François Laporte (L’Artisan Parfumeur), which led to Creed, which led to Czech & Speake, which led to Penhaligon’s…on and on to this day.
Etro Vetiver, by perfumer Jacques Flori, was released in 1989 and lists notes of artemisia, clary sage, cypress, cedar, tobacco and Bourbon vetiver. Etro Vetiver opens with green artemisia and sage; the herbal, forest-y notes are strong and clear — invigorating…
For anyone who isn't familiar with vetiver outside of the world of perfume, here is a video (rather long, nearly 8 minutes) on the use of vetiver in erosion control in Hawaii.
Vetiver is in my veins. I use so many vetiver fragrances I’m sure detectable quantities of Chrysopogon zizanioides oil appear in my blood panels. Vetiver has such a hold on me, I believe it must have been one of the first fragrances I smelled as a baby. When I sniff vetiver, I feel warm, happy, calm, and contemplative. Tom Ford associates vetiver, as he does many of his favorite things, with money and power: “It is solid, like the man who wears a custom-made suit or invests in hand-crafted shoes.”1 That statement robs vetiver of all romance, and as I often feel while reading the worldly wit and wisdom of Tom Ford, I want to renounce my possessions, move to a mountaintop, set up house in a cave and own only a robe and a begging bowl. With Tom Ford, “money talks”…and talks, and talks some more.
(O.K. I admit while searching theTom Ford website for images to use in this review, I saw several coats from the fall/winter men’s collection that ignited the most unenlightened thing possible — Desire; perhaps I’m not quite ready for the hermitage.)
At any rate, Tom Ford’s coffers are continually growing…
French niche line Honoré des Prés debuted last year with five certified organic perfumes, all (Chaman’s Party, Bonté’s Bloom, Nu Green, Sexy Angelic) save one (Honoré’s Trip) from perfumer Olivia Giacobetti. As I’ve said here before, I don’t really care personally about the synthetic vs. natural debate — to the extent that it is a debate — but it’s been nice to see more and more choice for consumers on the naturals front over the past few years, and of course anything from Olivia Giacobetti is going to get my attention.
My early favorite of the five: Chaman’s Party, the woody-vetiver entry, of course. I have to note as an aside that the brand’s Ecocert status doesn’t stop them from issuing the same sort of breathless PR-speak as everybody else; Chaman’s Party is described as an “explosive perfume due to its top-secret ingredients with aphrodisiac properties”. I don’t know about all that, but it’s a wonderful vetiver, and like the recent Turtle Vetiver Exercise No. 1 from LesNez, I’d call it a must-try for vetiver enthusiasts…
I said yesterday that I hadn't swooned over a new fragrance in some time (see Vanille Galante), but I left one out: Turtle Vetiver, from LesNez. It's their latest scent from perfumer Isabelle Doyen, and it was developed as part of the Turtle (“anarchic”) salon:
TURTLE is an open and chaotic network of diverse but interconnecting ideas, people, projects, events, and venues linked by American filmmaker, Michael H Shamberg. Perfumer Isabelle Doyen’s contribution is a Vetiver EdT which she makes in small quantities and constantly changing formulas.
You can read more about the Turtle project here, but I'll skip right ahead to Turtle Vetiver, or more specifically, Turtle Vetiver Exercise No. 1…
