Vetiver

It's like a tropical greenhouse. Fresh green plants, citrus, bergamot, wet earth. Lovely lovely smell.

I picked up a sample of this based on the glowing reviews here. I love vetiver. On me, this smells like a Little Debbie Nutty Bar that's been scorched and dropped on the ground.

When first I inhaled this scent, I connected with it in a primitive fashion. This is the scent of the Romans of the Old Republic, before the Empire's pomp and debauchery. It spoke to me across the eons of time immemorial. Wearing it amongst the subhuman Trogdalytes of London's Underground system I could smell my own feral aroma...how Roman...how Romantic.. but wait! Was it perhaps too much hay? Too pungent? Too acrid, dry and unforgiving? Suddenly a panic gripped me - had I in fact paid £89 for 100mls of a cologne that was reminiscent of hay and saw dust saturated with rat's urine in countless cages of pink eyed rodents in some University laboratory? My worst fears were allayed when I arrived at work and in a bloody minded determination to overcome my fear of rats pee pheromone cologne, I sprayed two bursts to my jugular...and then.. from across the arid waste of our open plan office, my female colleague exclaimed "that smells absolutely amazing!" Roma Invicta... Yesssss...This was the scent of a Roman who spends his summers campaigning in the legion to return home and tend to his horses, his familia, his land. A time when men were men, albeit in rustic tunics. Towering cedar, dry and rugged, its needles sweating oil in the hot Roman sun. A breeze rises from the Mediterranean, the warm wind dragging its fingers through the wild bushes of clary sage and across the fields. Deep damp Italian earth, leathery tobacco, cloying and close to the skin. Vetiver like the very roots of the land, a grassy pungency that fills the nostrils like oxen under the yoke, straw and hay broken and bleeding into the clods of herbaceous soil, the most manly reek of the land. A land of horses, hay, clay and sage, cedar trees and a warm salty breeze. Not a land of rodents breeding in pitch black, cold urine soaked warrens. Ahhhh time to book another Roman Holiday...

A beautifully dark roasted rich vetiver. It's a full and singular blend. There's a hint of bitter tannins, wood tar. Cedar gives it a slight sweetness. I don't detect any of the other notes. To me it's a comforting and calming scent. It stays close to the skin.

This seems to have all the best bits of vetiver as I've experienced in other vetivers, all present together, in just the right amounts. Maybe this is what plain old vetiver smells like, without being overly adorned with either lemons, tobacco, cypress, hazelnuts or coriander - yet little pieces of all of them. I get some of the damp rootiness of Encre Noire, but slightly reining in the dark, damp inkyness and piney-cypress; some of the bright opening of Guerlain or even Tom Ford, but without anywhere near close to the citrus of either, or as much of the musty carnation/tobacco of Guerlain; and some of the nuttiness that is highlighted in Hermessence Vetiver Tonka. It feels linear but complex. As others have said, it's most similar to Givenchy's but isn't as dry and 'austere' (I quote someone else -possibly Luca Turin). It certainly doesn't have the coriander note to deviate over into curry territory (which scared the heck out of me when I blind bought the Givenchy). I'm sure it would work in most of Spring and Autumn quite easily; I wore the Etro on a wet spring day. In short, this is great. I must buy another sample, just to make sure it's worth buying and replacing Guerlain and Tom Ford. Edit: I may check the longevity most of all.