Seller: Remembering Matt (120inna55)
Condition: Used
Remaining:
90% or More
This item is from the collection of Matt Hilton (120inna55). You can read more about Matt in the "About the Seller" section of this page.
Please consider a small donation to Matt's family if purchasing direct from M&M.
Read Matt's Review or Photos:
HEREScent Profile (by Matt when available):
French Vetiver opens with the expected earthy grassiness anticipated with any singularly vetiver fragrance. At least initially, the earthiness is clean, if that makes any sense. As opposed to being damp, dark, and swampy, it's more closely related to dry earth that's free of any decaying vegetation other than perhaps oak leaves. It then moves to even more grassiness and less earth to the point of smelling like Bermuda hay and warm unshelled peanuts in burlap. As the shave progresses, the fragrance has a brief transitional element that is reminiscent of sun-baked dirt emanating chalky minerals and salt. Holding onto this salt, the fragrance abruptly becomes wet, and even dank, with impressions of thick green moss and smoky seawater-rich tarry black peat. To a vetiver head, you're sold, right? No? Well, then now you're getting the idea of how Haitian vetiver deviates a bit from other varieties. CRS's French Vetiver doesn't dress this up, and as a result, some will find this repulsive. In much that same way a Highland single-malt scotch aficionado may rebuff an Islay.
So how does French Vetiver compare to 322? In a word, marginally. But in all fairness, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. 322 never claimed to be singularly Haitian vetiver. I've stated previously that with 322 it was love at first whiff, but I would not be surprised that the enormous Haitian vetiver presence immediately turns off some users that may have otherwise come to appreciate it if not love it. (Again, forgive the scotch comparison, but the same thing often occurs in this realm. Subsequent "tastes" uncover previously obscured elements as the subject develops a taste for something they'd previously detested. Hence "acquired taste".)