It’s been a while since I travelled up to Shinjuku Isetan specifically to try and potentially actually buy a new perfume. But I have always loved Guerlain Vetiver and the idea of a ‘parfum’ variant was just too intriguing to pass up. Buoyed up by a positive review on Persolaise I went straight to the Guerlain counter on an (unseemly busily Golden Week Saturday) and asked to smell it: within five minutes I had bought it. I love the bottle. The green colour. The label details. The heavy feel of it in the hand. The sense that the soul of the scent – the basic DNA – that husky, tobacco nutmeg with the vetiver and tonka that make it so distinctive – was still intact, even if some of the softer details have been swept away in the process.
Thirty years ago or so I used to hover about a bottle of the original Vetiver edt in a shop in Cambridge with a slightly tattered box (probably more tattered each time I went in there because it was me doing the tattering); eventually it went on sale and an ever increasingly perfume obsessed student could then buy it. It was a new departure for me , scent-wise, but there was something haunting about the perfume, like a cello played in a smoke- timbered house. It really tugged at an unknown chamber within me. Those melancholy, musky-citric, more profoundly human and poetic edges have been shorn away, and I miss them. But this slightly flintier, darker variant, which prolongs the essential vetiver note at the heart with a subtle note of juniper and coriander for a slightly basilic green astringency, is something I will wear regularly, probably layered with a touch of vintage Shalimar. It is me. And much better than some reformulations I have had over the years, where I always felt an overpreponderance of unnecessary, inexpensive ingredients. This is streamlined, simple. I made the right choice.
I’m still pining for the Pour Elle flanker
I am not sure I ever got to properly analyze that one. What was/is it like?
If memory serves it was a spring riff on a vetiver cologne. I adore Choc de Cardin & OG Cristalle EdT. If fitted into that sector, astringent, dry, greenish chypre.
I just looked on eBay. Wish I hadn’t. Asking prices between $600 – $800!!! I’ll have to stick to my two Cs
outRAGEOUSly expensive !
Oh, I am excited to hear more about this! Please wear it somewhere fascinating and write about it (I need the vicarious scenes and feelings to go with the fragrance descriptions, lol)
Not sure it is heavenly enough to evoke such stories – just a nice daily wear for me (when I am not working – would never wear this to school).
This is excellent news. And I’m so glad you love it and bought yourself a bottle, dear N. You know, the original Guerlain Vetiver is a scent I can actually still smell if I concentrate on that memory. No reform has come , close to its profound beauty. It was so mellow and rich, not a hard edge in sight, almost “golden” in my mind’s eye compared to harder, rougher, darker iterations. I must track down this parfum for Ric. And for myself. Thank you.
And yet no. I will v much enjoy spraying on my garments as an underlay – and am definitely pleased with the purchase – but the cracks in the armour do become apparent !
what you describe here
IS NOT THERE
( and yet : it kind of is ..)
I look forward to your review x
My favorite Guerlain!
Really? I love that idea. You donning Vetiver in the gallery…..
This works quite nicely actually. A darker sleek version with a gin and tonic top note. Good for head focused simplicity.
You all might like the Vetiver from Hove in New Orleans. It has that original Guerlaine heftiness to it. It’s earthy and wonderful.
I do love it, miss it and crave it !
I LOVED that shop and want to go back and get some vetiver bundles
Just received this for Christmas… And now trying to outwit my brain, which keeps directing me to compare it to the EDT and the ‘Extreme’ (must put this in quotes, as it wasn’t) variant of the EDT produced several years ago; these comparisons (made much worse by turning to Fragrantica) only muddle the issue. Anyway, semi-objectively, here’s what I have: it’s very warm, with a resinous dustiness from the elemi that works nicely with the — subdued — prickliness of the vetiver. This warmth is very mobile and sociable — others catch it and like it. The vetiver, which feels always a little cool and consonant to me, marries in an old-marriage way to the exoticism of the elemi. Everything is sonorously woody and pleasant, with anecdotes of smokiness and woodiness being related around the dinner table for the nth time with no objections…It’s a good story. I found myself comparing it to Eau Sauvage Parfum as the plotting feels very similar: take a fresh, bright, immediately recognizable composition and play it at a lower octave, deepening its sweetness and adding smoke for gravitas. Whereas the Eau Sauvage feels quite baroque given this treatment, Vetiver never stops being good old reasonable, sane, agreeable Guerlain Vetiver (not a complaint…) Surprisingly wearable, and uncomplicated in such a way as will appeal to others… But (and here it comes), the world doesn’t need it as much as it needs the EDT, with its wonderful cool/warm, citric/rooty, orris/floral contradictions. And by the world I mean me.
Need to resmell the edt now !